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I Life  of  Lord  Lawrence 


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V./ 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE 

VOLUME  I. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/lifeoflordlawren01smit_0 


LIFE 


OF 

/' 

Lord  Lawrence 


BY 

R.  BOSWORTH ''SMITH,  M.A. 


LATE  FELLOW  OF  TRINITY  COLLEGE,  OXFORD;  ASSISTANT  MASTER  AT  HARROW  SCHOOL,* 
AUTHOR  OF  ‘CARTHAGE  AND  THE  CARTHAGINIANS,’ 

‘ROME  AND  CARTHAGE,* 

ETC. 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 

Vol.  I. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 
i883 


►^pUCPERTy  op4*''*,, 

P HI  IT  0 ETON  \ 


N **££ 


TH 


CONTENTS 


OF 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


CHAPTER  I. 


EARLY  LIFE.  1S1I-1S29. 


PACES 


Introductory — The  Scoto-Irish  and  their  Characteristics — Henry  and 
John  Lawrence  compared — Scope  and  Object  of  Biography — John 
Lawrence’s  Father — His  Mother — His  Sister  Letitia — His  successive 
Homes — His  Childhood — His  Nurse  Margaret — His  School  at  Clif- 
ton— Anecdotes — Foyle  College  and  its  Surroundings — His  Compan- 
ions— Anecdotes — His  Intellectual  Progress — Dr.  Kennedy  and  Sir 
Robert  Montgomery — Wraxall  School — Reminiscences  by  Welling- 
ton Cooper  and  F.  B.  Ashley — Offer  of  Writership  by  John  Huddle- 
stone — ‘A  soldier  I was  born,  and  a soldier  I’ll  be’ — Haileybury 
College — Its  Staff  of  Professors  and  Course  of  Education — Contem- 
poraries of  John  Lawrence — Anecdotes — Reminiscence  by  J.  H.  Bat- 
ten— Sir  Charles  Trevelyan — Irish  element  in  John  Lawrence — 

Chelsea  Friends  ..........  1-29 


Prospects  of  John  Lawrence— Start  for  India — His  Companions— Home- 
sickness— Residence  in  Calcutta — Ruling  Principles  of  his  Life — 
Appointed  to  Delhi — History  and  Description  of  Delhi — Battles  for 
Empire — Successive  Cities — The  Great  Mogul  and  his  Treatment  by 
the  English — Crimes  and  Abuses  in  Palace — Sir  Charles  Metcalfe — 
Theopbilus  Metcalfe— Duties  of  Resident — Character  of  City  Popu- 
lation— The  Delhi  District — Reminiscence  by  Charles  Trevelyan — 


CHAPTER  II. 


LIFE  AT  DELHI.  1829-1834. 


VI 


CONTENTS  OF 


Work  and  Life  of  John  Lawrence  as  ‘Assistant  to  Resident’  for 
four  Years — The  Sullateen — Slavery — Forgery — Story-telling — A 
Family  Gathering — Robert  Napier 30-43 

CHAPTER  III. 

LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT.  1834-1S37. 

Paniput,  historical  and  geographical — Battle-field  of  India — The  Jatsand 
their  Characteristics — The  Sikhs  and  their  Religion — Duties  of  Col- 
lector— Their  Variety — ‘ Cutcherry  on  Horseback1 — Sympathy  with 
People — Reminiscence  by  Charles  Raikes — Jan  Larens  sub  Janta. 

— John  Lawrence’s  Mode  of  Working — Anecdotes — The  Village 
Cowherds  and  Arrears  of  Revenue — Reminiscence  by  Sir  Richard 
Pollock — A Tonic — A Durbar — Solitude— Purchase  of  Chanda — 

Narrow  Escape — Fragment  of  Autobiography — ‘ A hunt,  a robbery, 
or  a murder?’ — Jan  Larens — Legendary  Fame — The  ‘Breasts  of 
the  Faithful  ’ — Physical  Strength — Moral  Courage — A Service  re- 
paid— Story  of  ‘ The  Brothers  ’ — Arrest  and  Detection  of  the  Mur- 
derer by  John  Lawrence — Murder  of  William  Fraser,  Commissioner 
of  Delhi — Detection  of  Murderer — Saves  Russeldar  from  Drowning 
— Chase  after  a Robber — ‘ The  widow  and  her  money-bags  ’ . . 44-77 

CHAPTER  IV. 

LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA.  1S37-184O. 

Reminiscence  by  W.  S.  Seton  Karr — His  Friendship  for  Lawrence,  and 
his  Tribute  to  his  Memory — John  Lawrence  transferred  to  Gorgaon 
— Predatory  Character  of  People — Nature  of  Country — ‘ Passive  re- 
sistance ’ — ‘Settlement  officer’  at  Etawa — Robert  Mertins  Bird — 

His  Services  and  Career — Retired  Civilians — ‘ Settlement  of  North- 
West’ — ‘Permanent  settlement’ — Its  Results — Law  of  Sale  and 
its  Results— Difficulties  of  Settlement — Village  Communities  and 
Boundary  Disputes — The  Talukdars — Settlement  Officers  of  North- 
West — Opposing  Schools — Description  of  Etawa — Famine — Its 
Causes,  Effects,  and  Remedies — Views  of  John  Lawrence — Pilgrims 
and  Pilgrimages — The  Goddess  Situla,  or  Small-pox — A Brahmin 
Pilgrim — Starvation — Work  at  Etawa — Reminiscence  by  J.  Cumine 
— Some  personal  Characteristics  of  John  Lawrence — Story  of  ‘ The 
disputed  boundary  ’ — Remarks  by  Sir  Henry  Maine — Dangerous 
Illness— Determines  not  to  Die — Journey  to  Calcutta — Goes  on 
Three  Years’  Furlough — General  Character  of  first  Ten  Years  in 
India— Reminiscence  by  Herbert  Edwardes 78-115 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


CHAPTER  V. 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE.  184O-1S42. 


Paucity  of  Materials  for  Biography— No  Journals,  and  few  private  Let- 
ters— How  explained — Changes  in  Clifton  Home — Death  of  Father 
— Marriage  of  Sister  Letitia — The  1 Lawrence  Fund  ’ — Death  of  old 
Nurse  Margaret — Visit  to  Scotland — Visit  to  Ireland — Meets  his 
future  Wife— V*sit  to  Bonn — Visit  to  Bath — Reminiscence  by  Mrs. 
Kensington — Visit  to  Lynton — John  Sterling  and  Caroline  Fox — 

Second  Visit  to  Ireland— Becomes  engaged  to  Harriette  Hamilton 
— Her  Antecedents — ‘Carders’  of  Meath — Story  of  her  Father  and 
Andrew  Rabb— Her  early  Life— The  Marriage — Its  Happiness — 
Anecdotes— Wedding  Tour  on  Continent — Visit  to  Rome — News 
of  Cabul  Disaster  reaches  them  at  Naples — First  Letter  of  John 
Lawrence — His  Illness — ‘ If  I can’t  live  in  India,  I must  go  and  die 
there’ — Sails  for  India 116-132 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR.  1S3S-1S42. 

Sketch  of  Afghan  War — Why  material  to  Biography—  Governor-General- 
ship of  Lord  Auckland — Progress  of  Russia — Character  of  Afghanis- 
tan and  Afghans — Dost  Mohammed — His  Advice  and  the  Way  in 
which  he  was  treated — Advice  of  other  great  Authorities,  and  how 
treated — Mission  of  Alexander  Burnes — Shah  Soojah — 1 When  your 
military  difficulties  are  over,  your  real  difficulties  will  begin  ’ — Fatal 
Infatuation — Rising  at  Cabul — Death  of  Burnes  and  Macnaghten — 

Akbar  Khan  and  the  Retreat — The  Moral — Lord  Ellenborough  and 
the  Army  of  Vengeance — The  Sandalwood  Gates — Manifesto  of 
Lord  Ellenborough — Who  was  to  do  most  to  carry  it  into  Practice  ? 1 33-143 

CHAPTER  VII. 

MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI  ; AND  FIRST  SIKH  WAR.  1842-1846. 

John  Lawrence  and  his  Wife  land  at  Bombay —Adventurous  Journey 
across  Central  India — Lord  Ellenborough’ s Pageant — Dearth  of 
Employment — Camp  Life — The  Taj  at  Agra — Meeting  with  George 
Lawrence  on  his  Return  from  Captivity — Narrow  Escape  of  George 
I.awrence — John  Lawrence  reappointed  to  Delhi — Sir  Robert  Collie 
Hamilton — Annexation  of  Khytul — Reminiscence  by  Colonel  Henry 
Yule — Birth  of  Eldest  Daughter — Meeting  of  the  Lawrences  and 


CONTENTS  OF 


viii 


their  Wives  at  Kurnal — Condition  of  Kurnal — Sanitary  Inquiries 
of  John  Lawrence — The  ‘ Purveyance  system  ’ — Condition  of 
Native  Women — Story  of  ‘The  leper’ — Treatment  of  the  Natives 
by  English — Sympathy  with  them — The  Great  Gulf — Magistrate  of 
Delhi — Tail  Reform — John  Lawrence  owed  Nothing  to  Patronage 
— Annexation  of  Scinde  and  its  Character — ‘ Peccavi  ’ — A Heritage 
of  triumphant  Wrong — Sir  Henry  Hardinge  Governor-General — His 
History  and  Character — His  Preparations  for  Defence  against  Sikhs 
— Meets  John  Lawrence  at  Delhi — Mutual  Impressions — First  Sikh 
War — ‘ No  one  can  tell  what  fools  may  do  ’ — Battle  of  Ferozeshah 
— A Cadmean  Victory — John  Lawrence  ‘ The  Base  of  Operations’ 
for  Sobraon — Battle  of  Sobraon — Annexation  of  Jullundur  Doab — 
Questionable  Treatment  of  Jummoo  and  Kashmere — ‘Sendane  up 
John  Lawrence’ — Reminiscence  by  Colonel  Ramsay  . . 144-173 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  1846. 

Great  Leap  in  Advance — Folio  Volumes  of  Letters — Character  and 
Population  of  Jullundur  Doab — Reminiscences  by  Robert  Cust  and 
Hercules  Scott — Heavy  Work — Powers  of  Despatch — Harry  Lums- 
den  and  Edward  Lake — Fortress  of  Kangra — Its  History,  Resist- 
ance, and  Submission — A Bloodless  Victory — Land  Tax  to  be  paid 
in  Money  instead  of  in  Kind — Importance  of  this  Reform — The 
Rajas  of  the  Hills — Female  Infanticide — Its  Causes — The  Bedi  of 
Oona — ‘ Those  Bedis  were  not  such  bad  fellows’ — Humour  of  John 
Lawrence — Danger  of  Combination  among  Sepoys  foreseen — His 
Relations  to  his  Subordinates — Visit  to  Simla  ....  174-1S8 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ACTING  RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE.  1S46-1848. 

Character  and  Career  of  Runjeet  Sing — ‘ It  will  all  soon  be  red’ — East- 
ern Dynasties — State  of  Punjab  under  Runjeet’s  Successors — 
Character  of  Sikhs — Sir  Henry  Lawrence  Resident  at  Lahore — 
Bona-fide  Efforts  to  save  the  Sikh  State — His  Measures — John  Law- 
rence takes  his  place  at  Lahore — His  Special  Difficulties — Divided 
Responsibility — The  Sirdars,  the  Maharani,  and  her  Grand  Vizier 
Lai  Sing — Letters — Anecdotes — The  Question  of  Jagheers — Jan 
Lanns  sub  Junta  again — Absolute  Straightforwardness — Golab 


/ 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 

Sing  and  Imamuddin — Their  Characters — State  Trial  and  Banish- 
ment of  Lai  Sing — Henry  Lawrence  practically  Ruler  of  the  Punjab 

His  Assistants  and  his  Work — John  Lawrence  returns  to  Jullundur 

A bold  Prophecy—1  Assess  low  ’ — George  Christian  and  George 

Barnes — Treatment  of  Chiefs  in  Jullundur  Doab — Important  and 
Difficult  Question — A Cow  Riot — Banishment  of  the  Maharani — 
Character  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence’s  Rule  in  Punjab— His  HappinAs 
there — Henry  a John-ite,  and  John  a Henry-ite — Henry  Lawrence 
goes  to  England  with  Lord  Ilardinge — Relation  of  Lord  Ilardinge 
to  the  Lawrences 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR.  1 848. 

John  Lawrence  ‘acting’  Resident  at  Lahore  again — Letters  of  Lord 
Hardinge  to  him — Drawbacks  and  Difficulties  in  his  Work — Passive 
Resistance  of  Sirdars — Reminiscence  by  Lewin  Bowring — Simplicity 
of  Life — ‘ The  gorgeous  East  ’ — House  and  Household — Friendship 
with  Sir  Colin  Campbell — Arrival  of  Lord  Dalhousie  in  India — Sir 
Frederick  Currie  succeeds  John  Lawrence  at  Lahore — Birth  of 
second  son  Henry — Dhurmsala — Murder  of  Agnew  and  Anderson — 
Was  it  planned? — Story  of  Moolraj — Letters  and  Advice  of  John 
Lawrence — Delay  of  chief  Authorities — Lord  Gough  and  Lord  Dal- 
housie— Exploits  of  Herbert  Edwardes — Van  Cortlandt — Siege  of 
Mooltan  and  its  Vicissitudes — General  Rising  in  Punjab— Second 
Sikh  War — Sikhs  allied  with  Afghans — Battle  of  Chillianwallah — A 
Victory  or  a Defeat  ? — Achievements  of  ‘ Assistants  to  Resident  ’ — 
George  Lawrence — James  Abbot — Lieutenant  Herbert — Reynell 
Taylor — Position  of  John  Lawrence  in  Jullundur  Doab — Content- 
ment of  People — Force  at  his  Disposal — Risings  in  the  Hills — He 
conducts  a Thirteen  Days’  Campaign — Leads  Sikhs  against  Sikhs — 
Successes — Bedi  of  Oona  again — Escape  of  a Guru — Charles  Saun- 
ders— John  Lawrence  attracts  Attention  of  Lord  Dalhousie — Mas- 
terful Character  of  Lord  Dalhousie — His  Relations  to  Lord  Gough 
and  Henry  Lawrence — Change  of  Master,  and  what  it  often  implies 
Local  Experience  and  its  Value — Racy  Letters  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie— Bulk  of  his  Correspondence  sealed  up  for  fifty  Years — Re- 
turn of  Henry  Lawrence  to  India — His  Ikbal — Capture  of  Mooltan 
— Battle  of  Gujerat — Submission  of  Sikhs — ‘ Runjeet  Sing  is  dead  to- 
day ’ — Advice  of  John  Lawrence — Annexation  of  Punjab  and  its 
Justification 


ix 

CAGES 


IS9-2I4 


2IS-25I 


X 


CONTENTS  OF 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD.  1S49-1852. 

PACES 

How  was  the  Punjab  to  be  governed? — Balance  of  Civil  and  Military 
Elements — Sir  Charles  Napier  and  Lord  Dalhousie — A volcanic 
Board — Did  it  answer  its  purpose? — Its  three  Members:  Henry 
Lawrence,  John  Lawrence,  C.  Greville  Mansel — Their  Idiosyncra- 
sies— Physical  Characteristics  of  Punjab — Its  Rivers  and  Doabs — 

The  Derajat — A Country  of  Extremes — Hill  Districts  and  Plains — 
Boundaries  and  Mountain  Ranges — Frontier  natural  or  ‘ scientific’  ? 

— Races  inhabiting  Punjab — The  Peshawur  Valley — Character  of 
Northwest  Frontier — Runjeet  Sing’s  Principles  of  Government,  of 
Taxation,  of  Punishment— Disarmament  of  People — Protection  of 
Country — Raising  of  Irregular  Regiments — The  Guide  Corps,  its 
History  and  Characteristics — Protection  of  Peshawur  Valley — De- 
fensive Arrangements  of  Frontier — The  ‘ Wardens  of  the  Marches’ 

— Raising  of  Police — Prevention  and  Detection  of  Crime — Cattle- 
stealing— Dacoity— Thuggee— Jails  built — Native  Customs,  as  far 
as  possible,  respected— Land  Survey  and  Revenue  Settlement— Its 
Benefits — Reforms  in  Taxation — Soldiers  become  Cultivators — De- 
velopment of  Resources — Road-making — Robert  Napier  and  Alex- 
ander Taylor — The  Grand  Trunk  Road — Canals — The  Bari  Doab 
Canal — Coinages  and  Languages — Education — Agriculture — Forest 
Trees  — Sanitary  Measures — ‘Perfection  made  up  of  trifles’ — The 
Punjab  a financial'  Success — General  Results — Quotations  from 
‘ Punjab  Report,’  from  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  the  Directors  of  East 
■ India  Company — Sir  Richard  Temple’s  Retrospect  . . . 252-286 


CHAPTER  XII. 

HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE.  1849-1852. 

Difficulties  and  painful  Character  of  the  Subject — Dhurmsala — A Bear 
Hunt  and  a Nose  Maker — Story  of  a Gudi — Mrs.  John  Lawrence 
during  second  Sikh  War — The  Lahore  Residence  after  Annexation 
— Busy  Scene — Meeting  of  the  Board — Subjects  to  be  dealt  with — 
Spheres  of  the  Lawrence  Brothers — Sir  John  Kaye  on  John  Law- 
rence--Differences  of  Opinion  and  Heart-burnings — Loss  of  Koh-i- 
noor — The  Brothers  compared  and  contrasted — Henry  Lawrence’s 
generous  Fight  for  Sirdars — His  unique  Character — His  Peregrina- 
tions— ‘ Achilles  absent  is  Achilles  still’ — John  Lawrence  brought 
into  Prominence,  how? — ‘A  killing  Summer’ — Arrest  of  Sirdars — 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


xi 


Reform  of  Tariff — Sir  Charles  Napier — His  Character  and  Disap- 
pointments— Ilis  Biography  and  his  Writings — Antagonism  to  Lord 
Dalhousie,  to  the  Lawrences,  and  to  Civil  Government  generally — 

Scinde  and  Punjab  Schools  in  India — 1 Backward  ’ and  1 Forward  ’ 

Policy — Krere  and  Lawrence — Quotations  from  Sir  Charles  Napier 
— His  attack  on  Punjab  Administration — His  Knowledge  of  the 
Subject — His  Opinion  on  Things  in  general — His  Prophecies — An- 
swer of  John  Lawrence — Meeting  of  Antagonists  at  Lahore — Story 
of  Selection  of  Mean  Meer  Cantonments--Sir  Charles  Napier’s  Tour 
of  Inspection — The  Kohat  Pass — Fierce  Controversies — Letters  of 
John  Lawrence — The  Administration  in  Scinde — Visit  of  John  Law- 
rence to  Lord  Dalhousie  at  Simla — No  Holidays  allowed  in  the 
Punjab — ‘The  Punjab  head’ — Question  of  Frontier  Force — Visit 
of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  to  Kashmere  and  Ladak  with  Ilodson — Ill- 
ness of  John  Lawrence — Dr.  Hathaway — Affectionate  Letter  of 
Lord  Dalhousie— John  Lawrence’s  own  Anticipations  of  his  Future 
compared  with  the  Reality — Death  of  infant  Son — Tenderness  of 
John  Lawrence— Daughters  sent  to  England  with  Nicholson  and 
Edwardes — Mansel  leaves  the  Punjab — Ilis  Character — Succeeded 
by  Montgomery — His  History  and  Characteristics — The  Triumvirate 
at  Foyle  College  and  on  the  Punjab  Board — Story  of  the  Simpson 
Brothers — Visit  of  Lord  Stanley — ! Heroic  simplicity  ’ — Subordin- 
ates of  the  Lawrences — Their  Careers  and  Characters — The  Board 
is  to  be  dissolved — What  it  had  done— Had  it  answered  its  Pur- 
pose ? — Chief  Subjects  of  Difference  between  the  Lawrence  Brothers 
— Which  was  right  ? — Reminiscence  by  General  John  Becher — 

How  did  Montgomery’s  Advent  affect  the  Question  at  Issue — ' A 
buffer  between  two  high-pressure  engines  ’ — Pathetic  Letters  of 
John  Lawrence — Both  Brothers  offer  to  resign — Lord  Dalhousie 
makes  his  Choice  between  them — Sir  Henry  Lawrence  leaves  the 
Punjab — Parting  Scene  at  Lahore  and  at  Umritsur — Career  and 
Influence  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  ......  2S7-351 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  1852-1853. 

Effects  of  Henry  Lawrence’s  Departure — General  Character  of  John 
Lawrence’s  Rule- — His  chief  Fame  rests  on  it — Consolidation  and 
Development — Abolition  of  Board  good  for  State  then,  and,  still 
more,  four  Years  later — Difficult  Questions  to  be  dealt  with — Mont- 
gomery ‘ Judicial  Commissioner  ’ — Edmonstone  ‘ Financial  Commis- 
sioner ’ — Division  of  Labour — Shifting  of  Parts,  but  Actors  the  same 


CONTENTS  OF 


xii 


— First  Letter  to  Nicholson — ‘Nicholson  worth  the  wing  of  a regi- 
ment ’ — Last  Appeal  of  Henry  Lawrence — Gravitation  of  John  Law- 
rence towards  his  Brother’s  Views — Less  Worry  and  more  Work — 
General  Characteristic  of  Chief  Commissionership — Justice — Equity 
— Subordination  — Economy — Thoroughness — Despatch — Kindness 
to  Natives — Frontier  Policy — Distribution  of  Patronage — ‘Avoid 
the  hills  ’ — John  Lawrence’s  chief  Objects,  Occupations,  and  Difficul- 
ties— Correspondence  with  Lord  Dalhousie  best  shows  his  Head  ; with 
Nicholson,  his  Heart — Difficulties  in  dealing  with  Nicholson,  with 
Robert  Napier,  with  Coke,  with  Macleod — ‘A  lac  of  rupees’ — ‘ If 
you  want  the  thing  well  done,  go  to  Napier  ’ — Taking  of  a Bribe — 
Description  of  Macleod — Exceptional  Advice  to  Beclier— Treatment 
of  Natives  by  English  Officers — Complications  in  Bahawulpore — 
Important  indirect  Results — Policy  towards  Afghans  and  Frontier 
Tribes — Murder  of  Mackeson — Panic  in  Peshawur  District — ‘ An 
imperial  No  ’ — Lawrence’s  Opinion  of  Herbert  Edwardes  and  Sir 
James  Outram — ‘An  imperial  Yes’ — Letters  to  Courtenay — Letters 
to  Lord  Dalhousie  and  increasing  Intimacy — At  Peshawur — The 
Bori  Afridis — John  Lawrence  under  Fire — His  Glee — Attempt  to 
Murder  Godby — John  Lawrence  sends  second  batch  of  Children 
to  England  with  Charles  Saunders — Powers  of  Work — Visit  to 
Mooltan  and  the  Derajat — Cattle-stealing  still — ‘The  first  specimen 
of  the  conquering  race’ — Futteh  Khan  Khuttuck — Lawrence’s  De- 
scription of  him — Troubles  with  Hodson  in  Command  of  Guides — 
Complaints  against  him — John  Lawrence’s  Forbearance — Court  of 
Inquiry — Kader  Khan — Hodson  remanded  to  his  Regiment — Differ- 
ences between  Tribes  of  Northern  and  Southern  Derajat — The 
‘ Cunctator  ’ — Succeeds  Edmonstone — The  Delectable  Mountains — 
House  and  Work  at  Murri — Birth  of  third  Son  Charles — Philip 
Melvill  and  George  Christian — First  Meeting  with  Richard  Temple 
— His  Powers  of  Work  and  rapid  Rise — ‘ Punjab  Report  ’ — Temple 
becomes  Secretary  to  John  Lawrence — Relief  to  Chief  Commissioner 
— Reminiscence  by  Temple — Second  Punjab  Report — Moral  and 
material  Progress  . ...  352 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

RELATIONS  WITH  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES.  1854-1856. 

The  Crimean  War — ‘ Be  on  the  Look-out  for  Menschikoffin  the  Khyber’ 

— Russia  and  Afghanistan — ‘ Don’t  send  a European  Envoy  to 
Cabul  ’ — Views  of  Edwardes,  of  Lawrence,  of  Lord  Dalhousie — 
Moral  Courage  and  Loyalty  of  John  Lawrence — Character  of  Afghans 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


— John  Lawrence’s  Negotiations  with  Gholam  Ilyder  Khan — Diplo- 
macy not  necessarily  Trickery — Description  of  Ilyder  Khan — Herat 
and  Peshawur— Mohammed  Khan  and  George  Lawrence — Anecdotes 
— ‘ Look  at  his  hand  ’ — Khazwanis  and  Khugwanis — The  Turks 
beat  the  Russians — Conclusion  of  Treaty — Its  Terms — ‘ The  soul  of 
the  battle’ — Return  of  Old  Punjabis  to  John  Lawrence— Lake — 

Reynell  Taylor — Harry  Lumsden — Neville  Chamberlain — George 
Campbell — Sydney  Cotton — What  Lawrence  cared  for  in  his  Subor- 
dinates— ‘Keeping  the  team  together’ — Difficulties — Correspon- 
dence with  Nicholson,  Neville  Chamberlain,  Coke,  Edwardes, 
Montgomery,  Napier — ‘Blessed  are  the  peacemakers’ — Magnanim- 
ity and  Forbearance  of  John  Lawrence — Nicholson’s  ‘ Pen  and  ink  ’ 

Work — Napier’s  Public  Works  and  Expenditure — Result  of  John 
Lawrence’s  Efforts — Relations  to  Lord  Dalhousie — Character  of 
Lord  Dalhousie — His  commanding  Powers — His  Defects— His  Style 
of  Writing — His  Kindness — His  Appreciation  of  Services — His  Ill- 
health — His  Dignity — Every  Inch  a King — Masterful  Character  of 
John  Lawrence — What  enabled  him  to  get  on  with  Lord  Dalhousie 
— Mixture  of  Qualities — ‘ You  are  a good  hater’ — Correspondence 
with  Lord  Dalhousie — General  Character  of  his  Rule — A Baronetcy 
or  a K.C.B.  ? — Illness  of  Lady  Lawrence — What  she  would  have 
missed  had  she  gone  to  England — Farewell  Visit  to  Lord  Dalhousie 
at  Calcutta — Annexation  of  Oude — John  Lawrence’s  Views  of  it — 

The  ‘ Chief  Commissioner  ’ to  become  ‘ Ligutenant-Govemor  ’ of 
the  Punjab — Estimate  of  John  Lawrence  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  by  Sir 
J.  P.  Grant,  and  Sir  Barnes  Peacock — Last  Meeting  of  the  Brothers 
Lawrence — Arrival  of  Lord  Canning — Departure  of  Lord  Dalhousie 
— He  goes  Home  to  die — His  Farewell  Letters — The  K.C.B.  at 
last 406-450 


CHAPTER  XV. 

JOHN  LAWRENCE  AND  AFGHANISTAN.  THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 

1856-1S57. 

Change  of  Masters — Impressions  of  Lord  Canning — The  War  with.  Persia 
and  its  Causes — Disgust  of  Lord  Canning  and  Sir  John  Lawrence — 

Who  was  to  have  the  Command? — Sir  John  Lawrence’s  Opinion  of 
his  Brother  Henry — Reminiscence  by  Sir  George  Campbell — ‘ Job- 
bing for  one’S  friends’ — Loyalty  of  his  Friends — Popularity,  and  his 
Attitude  towards  it — Roughnesses — Appetite  for  Work — Overdone 
at  last — ‘ Distracted  with  one  botheration  and  another  ’ — Nicholson 
again — Anecdotes — The  Crimea,  or  Bhurtpore,  or  Kashmere  ? — 


XIV 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


Temple  goes  to  England — ‘Never  say  Die’ — Dost  Mohammed  and 
Candahar — Proposed  Interview  between  the  Dost  and  Sir  John 
Lawrence — A Wild-goose  Chase — Sir  John  Lawrence’s  Policy  to- 
wards Afghanistan — Important  Letters — Lessons  for  the  Present  and 
Future — Lord  Canning  agrees — Meeting  in  the  Khyber — Picturesque 
Scene — Interviews  with  the  Dost — Should  English  Officers  be  placed 
at  Cabul  ? — ‘ My  verbal  assurance  pledges  Government  as  much  as  a 
written  article’ — Terms  of  Treaty — Anecdotes  of  the  Dost — His 
Truthfulness — How  he  made  both  Ends  meet — Mission  of  the 
Lumsdens  to  Candahar — Strict  Limitation  of  its  Objects — Sir  James 
Outram  in  Command  in  Persia — Sir  Henry  Lawrence  becomes 
‘ Chief  Commissioner  ’ of  Oude — Death  of  Lady  (Henry)  Lawrence 
— Letter  to  Sir  Henry  with  Hints  for  his  new  Work — The  Sisyphman 
Stone — Illness  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Thinks  of  returning  to  Eng- 
land— ‘ The  little  cloud’ — Brewing  of  the  Storm — The  Chupatties 
— Causes  and  Symptoms  of  the  Mutiny — Sir  John  Lawrence  at  Seal- 
kote  and  Rawul  Pindi — Bursting  of  the  Storm  ....  451-484 


ERRATA. 


Page  27, 
“ 135. 
“ 144. 
“ 157. 
“ 349. 
“ 169, 

“ 178. 

“ 322> 


line  7,  for  Hoddesden  read  Hoddesdon. 

“ 9,  for  foreign  master  read  master. 

“ 32,  for  Ellickpore  read  Ellichpore. 

‘ ‘ 4°.  ) 

r for  Monro  read  Munro. 

“ 29,  ) 

“ 32,  for  protected  Sikh  states  read  Sikh  domain. 
“ 3°.  for  Edmund  Lake  read  Edward  Lake. 

“ 24,  for  change  read  charge. 


“ 324. 
“ 32S. 


’ [ for  Roopore  read  Roopur. 
» ' 


“ 356, 
“ 393. 
“ 442, 
“ 480, 


(-  for  Edmondstone  read  Edmonstone. 
“ 22,  I y 

“ 26,  for  in  company  doubled  read  doubled. 

“ 5,  for  Hindustanis  read  Hindus. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  VOL.  I. 


PORTRAIT 


. to  face  title-page 


Map  of  the  Punjab  and  adjoining  Countries.  1849-1858  “ page  215 


LIFE  OF 


LORD  LAWRENCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY  LIFE.  1811—1829. 

Nowhere  within  the  circuit  of  the  British  Islands  is  a more 
interesting,  a more  vigorous,  or  a more  strongly  marked  type 
of  character  to  be  found  than  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
North  and  North-east  of  Ireland.  The  people  who  have  sprung 
from  that  sturdy  mixture  of  Scotch  and  Irish  blood  are  not 
without  their  conspicuous  faults.  No  race  which  is  at  once  so 
vigorous  and  so  mixed  is  ever  free  from  them.  A suspicious- 
ness and  caution  which  often  verges  on  selfishness,  an  ambition 
which  is  as  quiet  as  it  is  intense,  a slow  and  unlovable  calcu- 
lation of  consequences,  these  are  some  of  the  drawbacks  which 
those  who  know  and  love  them  best  are  willing  to  admit.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  have  been  found  amongst  them  men  who, 
under  the  most  widely  different  circumstances,  in  Great  Britain 
itself,  in  that  ‘Greater  Britain,’ which  lies  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  amongst  our  widely  scattered  dependencies,  last,  not  least, 
in  that  greatest  dependency  of  all,  our  Indian  Empire,  have 
rendered  the  noblest  service  to  the  State  as  intrepid  soldiers, 
as  vigorous  administrators,  as  wise  and  far-seeing  statesmen. 
Among  the  Scoto-Irish  there  have  been  found  men  who  have 
combined  in  their  own  persons  much  of  the  rich  humour  and 
the  strong  affections,  the  vivacity  and  the  versatility,  the  genius 
and  the  generosity  of  the  typical  Irishman,  with  the  patience 
and  the  prudence,  the  devotion  and  the  self-reliance,  the  stern 
morality  and  the  simple  faith  of  the  typical  Scotchman.  In 
Vol.  I.— 1 


2 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


some  families  one  of  these  national  types  seems  to  predominate 
throughout,  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other.  In  others 
the  members  differ  much  among  themselves  ; one  conforming 
mainly  to  the  Scotch,  another  to  the  Irish  type  of  character, 
although  each  may  manage  to  retain  something  which  is  most 
distinctive  of  the  other.  This  last  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
case  with  the  heretofore  little  known  family  which  the  names 
of  Henry  and  John  Lawrence  have  made  a household  word 
with  Englishmen  wherever  they  are  to  be  found,  and  which,  it 
may  safely  be  predicted,  will  be  loved  and  honoured  so  long 
as  England  retains  any  reverence  for  what  is  great  and  good. 

In  the  wide  circle  of  that  illustrious  brotherhood  which 
sprung  from  the  marriage  of  Alexander  Lawrence  and  Letitia 
Catherine  Knox,  it  is  hardly  fanciful  to  say  that  Henry  Law- 
rence was  essentially  an  Irishman,  but  with  a substratum  of 
those  deeper  and  sterner  qualities  which  we  generally  consider 
to  be  Scotch  ; that  John  was  essentially  a Scotchman,  but  pos- 
sessed also  much  of  what  is  truly  lovable  and  admirable  in 
the  typical  Irishman.  A study  of  the  character  of  two  gifted 
brothers,  so  like  and  yet  so  unlike,  would  have  been  of  deep 
interest  even  if  it  had  been  the  will  of  Providence  that  they 
should  have  lived  and  died,  as  their  grandfather  had  lived  and 
died  before  them,  amidst  the  petty  interests  and  the  monoto- 
nous routine  of  the  quiet  town  of  Coleraine.  But  this  was  not 
to  be.  In  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  human  fortune,  the  two 
brothers  differing  widely  as  they  did  in  aptitudes  and  tempera- 
ment, and  separated  from  each  other  in  very  early  life,  were 
brought  together  again  in  India:  the  one  from  the  Army,  the 
other  from  the  Civil  Service,  to  sit  at  the  same  Council  Board, 
and  to  rule  in  concert  that  huge  and  warlike  province  which 
a year  or  two  before  had  seemed  to  threaten  the  very  existence 
of  our  Indian  Empire.  They  were  to  rule  that  huge  province, 
in  spite  of  their  mutual  differences,  with  unbroken  success. 
When  at  last  the  differences  became  unbearable,  like  the  patri- 
arch of  old  and  his  younger  relative,  they  were  to  ‘ agree  to  dif- 
fer,’ each  going  on  his  different  path,  but  still  united,  each  to 
each,  in  their  purity  of  purpose,  in  their  simplicity  of  charac- 
ter, and  in  their  love  for  the  people  of  India  ; each  appreciating 
the  other’s  gifts,  each  doing  full  justice  to  the  other’s  aims,  and 
each  retaining,  as  it  will  be  my  happiness  to  show,  in  spite  of 
many  heartburnings,  his  brotherly  affection  for  the  other  to 
the  very  end. 


1811-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


3 


Each  was  to  be  called  off  in  a measure,  or  for  the  time,  from 
his  proper  calling.  The  elder  brother,  the  ardent  artilleryman, 
was  in  comparatively  early  life  to  drop  the  soldier  and  to  take 
to  civil  work,  and  after  living  to  be  named,  should  he  survive 
Lord  Canning,  the  provisional  Governor-General  of  India,  was 
destined,  while  defending  against  desperate  odds  the  capital  of 
his  province,  to  die  at  last  a soldier’s  death,  beloved  as  no  Eng- 
lishman in  India  has  been  beloved  before  or  since. 

The  younger  brother,  who  had  been  born  a soldier,  but 
whom  Providence  or  Fate  had  willed  should  be  a civilian,  was 
destined,  during  his  brilliant  government  of  the  Punjab,  to  do 
more  in  the  hour  of  our  utmost  peril  than  any  mere  soldier 
conld  have  done,  to  tell  some  of  the  bravest  generals  that  what 
they  thought  impossible  he  would  make  possible  ; to  call  forth 
armed  men,  as  it  were,  by  thousands  from  the  ground,  and  to 
launch  them,  one  after  the  other,  at  that  distant  spot  where 
his  insight  told  him  that  an  empire  must  be  lost  or  won  ; then 
to  rule  the  empire  he  had  done  so  much  to  save  ; and,  last  of 
all,  tov  die  in  ripe  old  age,  surrounded  by  those  most  dear  to 
him,  and  to  be  buried,  amidst  the  regrets  of  a nation,  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  honoured,  perhaps,  as  no  Anglo-Indian  has  be- 
fore been  honoured ; a man  who  never  swam  with  the  stream, 
who  bravely  strove  to  stem  the  current,  and  regardless  alike  of 
popular  and  of  aristocratic  favour,  pleaded  with  his  latest  breath 
for  what  he  thought  to  be  right  and  just.  To  the  biography  of 
men  whose  lives  have  been  so  strangely  chequered,  of  men  who 
have  not  so  much  made  history  as  become,  as  it  were,  a history 
in  themselves,  belongs  of  inherent  right  the  highest  interest  and 
importance  alike  of  history  and  of  biography. 

The  life  of  Henry  Lawrence  has  been  long  since  written,  in 
the  greater  part  at  least,  by  one  who  knew  him  well.  It  has 
fallen  to  my  lot,  under  disadvantages  which  neither  I nor  my 
readers  are  likely  to  undervalue,  to  attempt  the  biography  of 
John  Lawrence.  During  the  more  eventful  period  of  Lord 
Lawrence’s  life,  I knew  him  only  as  most  Englishmen  know  him 
now,  from  his  deeds.  But  during  his  last  few  years  it  was  my 
happiness  to  know  him  well ; and  I am  speaking  the  simple 
truth  when  I say  that,  to  converse  with  a man  who  had  done 
such  deeds,  and  yet  seemed  so  utterly  unconscious  of  them  ; 
who  had  such  vast  stores  of  Indian  knowledge,  and  yet  gave 
them  forth  as  though  he  were  a learner  rather  than  a teacher  ; 
who  was  brave  and  strong  and  rough  as  a giant,  but  tender  as  a 


4 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


woman  and  simple  as  a child,  seemed  to  me  then,  and  seems 
still,  to  have  been  a privilege  for  which,  if  one  was  not  a great 
deal  the  better,  one  would  deserve  to  be  a great  deal  the  worse. 
If  I am  able  to  describe  John  Lawrence  in  any  degree  as  I have 
often  seen  him,  and  as  I trust  a careful  study  of  his  voluminous 
correspondence,  and  the  help  given  freely  to  me  in  conversation 
by  his  relations,  his  friends,  and  his  opponents,  have  revealed 
him  to  me,  I shall  not  have  written  in  vain.  With  greater  skill, 
with  much  greater  knowledge,  his  biography  might  undoubtedly 
have  been  writen  by  one  and  by  another  who,  unlike  myself, 
had  known  him  throughout  his  life,  and  who  have  perhaps  a 
knowledge  of  India  only  less  than  John  Lawrence  himself ; but 
I venture  to  think  that  it  could  scarcely  have  been  written  by 
any  one  with  a keener  sense  of  responsibility  or  with  a more 
genuine  enthusiasm. 

And  here,  once  for  all,  let  me  remark,  and  then  I will,  as  far 
as  possible,  dismiss  the  biographer  to  the  place  which,  in  any 
good  biography,  he  ought  to  hold,  that  the  spirit  in  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  study  my  subject  is  not  the  spirit  of  one 
who  fears  the  simple  truth.  John  Lawrence  was  nothing  if  he 
was  not  truthful  ; he  was  transparent  as  the  day,  and  my  high- 
est aim  has  been  to  render  to  so  ‘heroically  simple  ’ a character 
that  homage  which  is  its  due — the  homage  of  unalloyed  truth. 
So  far  as  I have  been  able  to  avoid  it,  I have  toned  down 
nothing  ; I have  exhibited  his  character  in  all  its  lights  and 
shades.  The  life  of  Lord  Lawrence  could  not  have  been  lived 
by  any  such  perfect,  by  any  such  unexceptionable,  I might  add 
by  any  such  insipid  characters,  as  it  is  the  delight  of  many  biog- 
raphers to  portray.  If  it  be  true,  as  one  who  was  not  likely  to 
feel  much  sympathy  for  Lord  Lawrence’s  character  has  observed, 
that  ‘great  revolutions  are  not  made  by  greased  cartridges,’ 
much  less  is  it  true  that  John  Lawrence  could  have  done  one 
half  of  what  he  did  had  he  regulated  his  life  by  conventional 
standards,  or  had  he  known  how  to  adapt  his  opinions  and  his 
practices  to  those  which  were  most  in  favour  at  the  hour.  If 
John  Lawrence  had  in  his  best  days  the  strength  and  the  courage 
of  a giant,  happily,  for  the  interest  of  his  biography,  he  had 
also  something  of  the  rough  humour,  of  the  boisterous  pranks, 
of  the  wild  spirit  of  adventure  which  we  usually  associate  with 
the  Norwegian  Troll.  lie  always  said,  as  the  letters  I shall 
quote  will  abundantly  show,  exactly  what  lie  thought.  lie  al- 
ways acted — as  every  action  of  his  life  will  prove — exactly  as 


i 8 i 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


c 


he  spoke.  He  raised  against  himself,  as  every  strong  ruler,  as 
every  vigorous  reformer,  as  every  great  man  must  inevitably 
do,  not  a few  enemies  ; he  attached  to  himself  by  the  self-same 
processes,  and  for  the  self-same  reasons,  troops  of  most  devoted 
and  most  loyal  friends.  Those,  then,  who  would  see  John 
Lawrence  not  as  he  was,  but  as  perchance  they  think  he  ought 
to  have  been,  must  go  elsewhere.  The  rugged  lineaments  and 
the  deep  furrows  of  his  grand  countenance — 

For  his  face 

Deep  scars  of  thunder  had  entrenched,  and  care 
Sat  on  his  faded  cheek,  but  under  brows 
Of  dauntless  courage — 

are  a picture,  which  he  who  runs  may  read,  of  the  grand  and 
rugged  character  which  lay  beneath  it,  and  which  it  has  been 
my  highest  aim  to  strive  faithfully  to  reproduce. 

The  father  of  John  Lawrence  was  just  such  a man,  and  had 
lived  just  such  a life  as  might  have  been  expected  of  the  father 
of  such  a son.  His  life  had  been  one  continuous  struggle  with 
an  unkind  fate.  Hairbreadth  escapes,  moving  accidents  by 
flood  and  field  ; brave  deeds  innumerable,  often  handsomely 
acknowledged  by  his  superiors,  but  requited  scantily  or  not  at 
all  ; the  seeds  of  disease  sown  by  exposure  and  by  his  many 
wounds  ; the  prolonged  pinch  of  poverty ; a keen  sense  of 
slighted  merit,  and  a spirit  naturally  proud  yet  compelled  to 
stoop  to  ask  as  a favour  what  he  felt  to  be  his  right,  and  to 
remind  his  employers  of  deserts  of  which  they  should  rather 
have  been  the  first  to  remind  him  : these  and  other  elements 
of  the  kind  go  to  make  up  the  tragedy  of  his  hard  and  weather- 
beaten life.  He  was  fortunate  in  one  thing  only,  that  he  had 
sons  whose  deeds  were  destined  to  be  better  requited  than  his 
had  been,  and  whose  lives,  enshrined  in  the  memories  of  their 
grateful  countrymen,  have  compelled,  and,  it  may  be,  will  to 
all  future  time  compel  them,  to  enquire  what  manner  of  man 
was  the  father  from  whom  they  came. 

Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  in  his  life  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence, 
has  preserved  the  long  roll  of  Alexander  Lawrence’s  services, 
recorded  chiefly  by  his  own  indignant  pen.  It  is  unnecessary, 
therefore,'  here  to  do  more  than  glance  at  them.  Left  an 
orphan  at  the  early  age  of  ten  to  the  care  of  his  sisters  at 
Coleraine,  Alexander  Lawrence,  impatient  of  restraint  and 


6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


athirst  for  adventure,  went  off  in  his  seventeenth  year,  without 
a commission,  as  a volunteer  to  India.  It  was  four  full  years 
before  he  was  allowed  to  purchase  the  commission  which  his 
merits  had  long  since  won.  For  in  those  four  years  he  had 
managed  to  see  as  much  active  service  in  the  field,  and  to 
receive  as  many  hard  knocks  as  would  have  entitled  him,  now- 
adays, to  hasten  home  to  receive  a dozen  swords  of  honour, 
and  a dozen  addresses  of  congratulation  at  a dozen  public  din- 
ners. As  a lieutenant  he  fought  and  distinguished  himself  near 
Seringapatam,  at  Cochin,  and  at  Colombo,  at  the  Canote  river, 
and  in  the  battle  of  Sedaseer.  Finally,  at  the  famous  storming 
of  Seringapatam,  he  had  a full  opportunity  of  showing  the 
stuff  of  which  he  was  made. 

On  May  4,  1799,  he  volunteered  with  three  other  lieutenants 
to  lead  the  forlorn  hope  at  the  storming  of  Tippu  Sultan’s  fa- 
mous capital.  Of  these  four  he  was  the  one  survivor,  and  it 
was  not  his  fault  that  he  was  so.  When  he  reached  the  top  of 
the  glacis  he  received  a ball  in  his  arm,  which  he  carried  with 
him  to  his  grave.  But  observing  that  his  men  were  standing 
still  to  form  and  fire  wThen  they  ought  to  have  been  rushing  in, 
he  ran  forward,  wounded  as  he  was,  ‘ from  right  to  left  of  the 
rear  rank  of  the  forlorn  hope  hurrahing  to  them  to  move  on.’ 
When  this  had  no  effect,  he  ran  through  their  files  to  the  front, 
calling  out,  ‘Now  is  the  time  for  the  breach!’  On  reaching 
the  foot  of  the  breach  he  received  a second  ball,  which  carried 
off  one  finger,  and  shattered  another  into  several  pieces,  but 
even  so  he  did  not  give  in  till  he  had  seen  his  men  carry  the 
breach.  Then,  fainting  from  loss  of  blood,  he  fell  down  where 
he  was  and  lay  scarcely  sensible,  under  the  fiery  mid-day  sun  of 
May,  till  one  of  the  soldiers  of  his  own  regiment,  when  the  fight- 
ing was  over,  came  strolling  over  the  spot,  and,  recognising 
the  uniform  on  what  he  supposed  to  be  a dead  officer,  turned  his 
body  over.  Seeing  who  it  was,  and  observing  that  there  was 
some  life  ‘ in  the  old  dog  yet,’  he  carried  him  off  as  best  he 
could  on  his  shoulders  to  the  camp,  swearing  as  he  toiled  along 
that  he  would  not  do  as  much  for  any  other  man  of  them.1 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  further  his  military  career.  In 
one  of  his  earlier  campaigns  by  lying  on  the  wet  ground  at 
night  he  had  caught  a fever,  which  gave  him  at  intervals 
throughout  the  rest  of  his  life  many  rough  reminders  ; and  in 


> Life  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  by  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  vol.  i.  pp.  4-6. 


8i 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


7 


1809  he  returned  to  England  after  fifteen  years’  hard  service, 
broken  down  in  health  and  still  only  a regimental  captain. 
His  merits  procured  him  one  or  two  appointments  in  England, 
and  as  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  a veteran  battalion  at  Ostend  in 
1815  he  must  have  been  within  earshot  of  the  cannonade  at 
Waterloo,  a privilege  exasperating  enough  to  the  man  who  had 
stormed  the  breach  at  Seringapatam,  and  now  in  vain  petitioned 
to  be  sent  to  the  front.  When  at  last  he  was  driven  to  sell  his 
commission  for  fear  that,  if  he  died,  as  then  seemed  likely,  the 
price  of  it— the  only  worldly  property  he  possessed — would  be 
lost  to  his  family,  he  obtained  a pension  of  100/.  a year  for 
his  wounds,  a pittance  which,  as  he  grimly  remarked,  would 
do  little  more  than  pay  his  doctors ! This  pension,  it  is 
pleasant  or  painful  to  add,  was,  not  without  frequent  petitions 
from  himself,  afterwards  considerably  increased,  and  the  old 
hero  did  not  die  until  he  had  sent  forth  in  succession  five  sons, 
all  of  the  same  sterling  metal  as  himself,  to  the  country  to 
which  he  had  given  his  life. 

‘ If  you  are  ever  brought  before  a court-martial,  sir,’  he  said 
somewhat  sternly  to  his  son  George  St.  Patrick,  when  leaving 
England,  a man  afterwards  known  to  Sikhs  and  Afghans  alike 
as  a model  of  cool  courage  and  chivalrous  honour — ‘ if  you  are 
ever  brought  before  a court-martial,  sir,  never  let  me  see  your 
face  again.’  With  greater  pathos  and  with  equal  truth  might 
the  tough  and  travel-worn  veteran  have  addressed  each  one  of 
his  sons  as  he  sent  them  off  to  the  country  which  had  proved 
so  cruel  a step-mother  to  him,  in  the  words  that  Virgil  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  the  Trojan  warrior — 

Disce,  puer,  virtutem  ex  me,  verumque  laborem  ; 

Fortunam  ex  aliis. 

One  incident  only  of  his  life  in  England  requires  to  be 
mentioned  here.  In  the  year  1809,  shortly,  that  is,  after  he 
returned  from  India,  he  became  Major  of  his  regiment,  the 
19th  Foot,  which  was  then  or  soon  afterwards  quartered  at 
the  small  town  of  Richmond,  in  Yorkshire,  and  it  was  while 
he  was  living  here,  on  March  4,  1811,  that  John  Laird  Mair, 
the  sixth  of  his  sons  and  the  eighth  of  his  children,  was  born. 
What  wonder  that  some  fifty  years  later,  when  Sir  John  Law- 
rence was  returning  home  after  the  Mutiny,  with  his  honours 
thick  upon  him,  thinking,  as  well  he  might,  that  his  career  was 
over  and  that  he  had  earned  his  repose,  he  told  a trusted  friend, 


8 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


with  a tinge  of  sadness,  that  one  of  his  first  visits  would  be  to 
the  place  which  had  given  him  birth  ? What  wonder  either 
that  the  accident  of  his  birth  at  an  English  town  tempted  more 
than  one  English  statesman  in  the  first  burst  of  the  national 
grief  at  Lord  Lawrence’s  death  to  claim  the  great  Scoto-Irish- 
man  as,  in  part  at  least,  their  own,  and  to  point  out  in  eloquent 
language  that  he  had  combined  in  his  person  the  best  social 
and  moral  characteristics  of  the  British  Islands — Irish  boldness, 
Scotch  caution,  and  English  endurance  ? 

But  what  of  John  Lawrence’s  mother?  What  was  her  char- 
acter, and  what  share  had  she  in  the  moulding  of  her  son  ? 
Here  again  we  are  not  left  to  surmise  or  inference  alone.  For 
Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  quotes  an  account  of  her  given  him  in 
after  years  by  ‘one  of  her  sons,’  whom  I have  no  hesitation  in 
pronouncing,  from  internal  evidence,  to  have  been  John  Law- 
rence himself.  ‘I  should  say,’ he  writes,  ‘that  on  the  whole 
we  derived  most  of  our  metal  from  our  father.  Both  my  father 
and  mother  possessed  much  character.  She  had  great  admin- 
istrative qualities.  She  kept  the  family  together,  and  brought 
us  all  up  on  very  slender  means.  She  kept  the  purse,  and 
managed  all  domestic  affairs.  . . . When  I was  coming  out 

to  India,  my  poor  old  mother  made  me  a speech  somewhat  to 
the  following  effect  : — “ I know  you  don’t  like  advice,  so  I will 
not  give  you  much.  But  pray  recollect  two  things.  Don’t 
marry  a woman  who  had  not  a good  mother,  and  don’t  be  too 
ready  to  speak  your  mind.  It  was  the  rock  on  which  your 
father  shipwrecked  his  prospects.’’  ’ 

One  or  two  points  call  for  notice  here.  The  mother  who 
spoke  thus  was  a Knox,  the  daughter  of  a Donegal  clergyman 
but  descended  from  the  Scotch  reformer.  She  prided  herself 
on  her  descent ; and  simple,  thrifty,  homely,  God-fearing  as  she 
was,  her  relation  to  the  reformer  was  not  that  of  blood  alone. 
She  possessed  that  sound  good  sense  and  that  steady  persever- 
ance which  marks  so  many  of  the  Scotch  settlers  in  Ulster. 
If  John  Lawrence  was  right  in  supposing  that  he  owed  ‘ most 
of  his  metal,’  most,  that  is,  of  his  courage  and  his  military  in- 
stincts, of  his  iron  resolution,  and  his  love  of  adventure,  to  his 
father,  it  is  probably  not  less  true,  whether  he  knew  it  or  not, 
that  he  owed  his  shrewd  common  sense,  his  hatred  of  ostenta- 
tion and  of  extravagance,  and  the  vein  of  deep  religious  feel- 
ing, which  displayed  itself  specially  in  his  later  life,  but  under- 
lay the  whole  of  it,  to  his  mother.  The  influence  of  a mother 


8 i 1-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


9 


who  could  follow  uncomplainingly  from  youth  to  age  the  for- 
tunes or  misfortunes  of  her  somewhat  impracticable  and  way- 
ward husband,  who  could  rear  a family  of  twelve  children  on 
the  scantiest  means,  and  wandering  as  she  was  obliged  to 
wander  from  place  to  place,  could  yet  hold  them  together  and 
give  them  something  in  each  successive  residence  which  they 
could  look  upon  as  their  ‘ home,’  is  not  to  be  measured  by  its 
immediate  or  ostensible  results.  Men  rarely  understand — per- 
haps they  are  incapable  of  understanding — the  amount  of  pa- 
tient endurance,  the  thousand  rubs  and  annoyances,  which  a 
long-suffering  wife  or  mother  bears,  and  bears  in  silence,  that 
the  current  of  the  family  life  may  flow  smoothly  on.  When  she 
succeeds,  her  efforts,  as  likely  as  not,  pass  unnoticed  ; they  are 
lost  in  her  success.  Nor  would  she  wish  it  otherwise.  Where 
she  fails,  as  fail  sometimes  she  must,  on  her  falls  the  blame. 
But  the  influence  of  such  a woman  is  a living  influence  not- 
withstanding. It  is  felt,  not  seen  ; unacknowledged,  perhaps, 
but  well  understood.  It  pervades  the  home  life  ; nay,  when 
she  is  removed  by  death,  it  is  found  to  have  made  the  home  it- 
self, and  it  surv  ives  henceforward  as  the  genuine  undercurrent 
in  the  lives  of  all  those  who  have  been  happy  enough  to  have 
been  brought  within  its  sphere.  One  such  influence — the  most 
sacred  and  most  cherished  of  all  memories — it  may  have  been 
the  lot  of  one  or  another  among  my  readers  to  have  known, 
and  some  such  influence,  the  same  in  kind,  though  not  certainly 
in  degree,  I gather  from  the  letters  which  have  come  into  my 
hands,  was  that  of  Letitia  Knox. 

Not  that  her  character  was  especially  lovable  or  tender,  or 
that  the  home  she  made  would  nowadays  be  called  a genial  or 
a happy  home.  The  domestic  management  seems  to  have  been 
hard  and  unyielding.  There  were  no  luxuries  ; hardly  even 
were  there  any  of  the  comforts  of  life.  It  could  not  have  been 
otherwise.  The  old  Colonel’s  very  select  library,  consisting 
chiefly  of  his  Josephus  and  his  Rollin,  was  not  such  as  to  sup- 
ply food  for  young  minds  which  were  either  inquisitive  of  his- 
torical fact  like  that  of  John,  or  full  of  imagination  and  senti- 
ment like  that  of  Henry  Lawrence.  More  pleasant  than  the 
Colonel’s  library  must  have  been  the  stories  of  his  adventurous 
life,  stories  of  which  John  Lawrence  tells  us  that,  in  the  absence 
of  his  elder  brothers,  he  was  the  favoured  recipient  during  his 
country  walks.  More  pleasant  still  must  have  been  the  nursery, 
where  ‘ old  nurse  Margaret  ’ ventured,  in  the  children’s  interest, 


IO  LIFE  OE  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1811-29 

to  break  the  hard-and-fast  rules  of  diet  laid  down  by  the  higher 
authorities  for  the  children’s  good.  Pleasantest  of  all  must  have 
been  the  gentle  influence  of  that  ‘ Aunt  Angel  ’ who  for  many 
years  had  her  home  with  the  Lawrences,  and  whose  room  was 
the  favourite  resort  of  the  whole  family — one  of  those  beautiful 
spirits  which  has  learned  early  in  life  to  sacrifice  itself,  and  is 
able  at  last  to  find  its  own  happiness  in  nothing  but  in  that  of 
others. 

Portraits  of  Alexander  Lawrence  and  of  his  wife  still  remain, 
and,  apart  from  the  interest  attaching  to  their  features  as  the 
parents  of  their  children,  each  has  a touch  of  pathos  or  romance 
peculiarly  its  own. 

In  the  miniature  of  the  brave  old  veteran  which  belongs  to 
Sir  George  Lawrence,  his  eldest  surviving  son,  besides  the 
deep  lines  on  the  face  which  are  a distinguishing  mark  of  the 
Lawrence  family  and  which  are  now  known  to  the  world  in  the 
features  of  the  subject  of  this  biography,  may  be  noticed  on 
the  right  cheek  the  traces  of  a deep  sabre  cut  received  in  one  of 
his  earlier  engagements,  while  the  mere  fragment  of  a right 
hand  remaining  to  him  recalls  the  stormer  of  Seringapatam. 

The  portrait  of  the  mother  is  larger,  and  is  in  the  possession 
of  her  youngest  son,  General  Richard  Lawrence,  a man  whose 
promptitude  and  valour,  as  I shall  hereafter  show,  did  us  good 
service  in  the  Mutiny,  alike  at  Sealcote  and  at  Lahore.  Simple 
in  her  life,  and  dependent  in  her  old  age  upon  ‘ the  Lawrence 
fund,’  contributed  by  her  sons,  she  steadfastly  resisted  all  the 
entreaties  of  her  family  that  she  would  have  her  portrait  taken. 
Perhaps  she  thought  it  a waste  of  money ; perhaps,  in  the  eyes 
of  a descendant  of  John  Knox,  it  savoured  of  vanity  or  ostenta- 
tion. But  what  she  declined  to  do  for  her  children,  she  was 
willing  and  anxious  that  they  should  do  for  her.  So  the 
daughter  sat  down  close  by  her  mother’s  side.  The  painter 
worked  away,  and  the  ruse  was  not  discovered  till  the  portrait 
was  well  finished,  and  revealed,  to  the  surprise  of  the  aged 
mother,  the  features  not  of  her  daughter,  but  of  herself.  It  was 
a truly  pious  fraud,  and  was  duly  acquiesced  in  by  the  old  lady. 
There  she  sits  bolt  upright,  facing  full  the  painter  or  the  spec- 
tator, prim  and  neat,  serious  and  matter-of-fact,  with  a high- 
crowned  cap,  a wide  collar,  and  a shawl  pinned  neatly  at  the 
shoulders,  as  was  the  fashion  of  her  younger  days — for  she 
never  changed  fashion  with  the  changing  times — her  knitting 
in  her  hand,  while  she  herself  is  absorbed  in  her  work  and  is 


iSi 1-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


1 1 

quite  unconscious  of  the  fraud  that  is  being  played  upon  her 
by  the  man  whom  she  is  looking  full  in  the  face  ! 

It  is  almost  a truism,  that  it  is  a happy  thing  for  all  con- 
cerned if,  in  a large  family  of  brothers  and  sisters,  a sister  hap- 
pens to  be  the  eldest.  If  she  is  worthy  of  her  place,  her  influ- 
ence moulds,  softens,  checks,  refines,  elevates.  She  forms  a 
common  centre  round  which  the  other  members  of  the  family 
revolve.  If  they  are  able  to  agree  in  little  else,  they  agree  in 
their  trust  in  her.  Such  was  the  lot  of  the  Lawrence  family. 
The  eldest  son  died  at  the  age  of  three  years,  the  very  day  on 
which  Letitia  was  born,  as  though  the  brother  would  make 
room  for  the  sister,  and  worthily  she  filled  her  place.  She  had 
the  courage  and  force  of  command  of  the  most  famous  of  her 
brothers,  but  she  combined  with  it  much  of  the  tenderness  and 
of  the  softer  and  subtler  influences  of  woman.  She  belonged 
not  to  that  type  of  woman,  a type  all  too  common,  who  pride 
themselves  on  their  influence  over  men,  and,  content  with  it, 
reserve  for  their  own  sex  what  is  unattractive  and  unlovely. 
Such  a woman  would  have  been  as  hateful  to  Letitia  herself  as 
to  her  brothers.  Her  sisters-in-law,  some  of  whom  were  women 
of  marked  character  as  well  as  gifted  with  rare  charms,  owned 
her  sway,  and  grudged  not  the  influence  which  she  retained,  as 
of  right,  over  her  brothers  to  the  end.  She  was  the  adviser  and 
guide  of  the  whole  family.  Her  will  was  law,  not  so  much  be- 
cause it  was  a resolute  will  as  because  she  never  sought  her 
own.  To  her  the  strongest-minded  of  her  brothers  came  for 
advice,  as  men  came  to  Ahithophel  of  old,  as  though  they  would 
‘inquire  of  the  oracle  of  God.’  She  thus  in  large  measure,  as 
we  shall  hereafter  see,  shaped  the  destinies  of  her  brothers’ 
lives.  In  their  intercourse  with  her,  their  rougher  and  more 
tempestuous  side  seems  altogether  to  have  disappeared.  They 
told  her  every  difficulty,  shared  with  her  every  joy  and  sorrow, 
and  corresponded  with  her  in  the  most  intimate  and  unrestrained 
intercourse  until  her  death. 

What  Henryr  Lawrence  felt  towards  her  and  what  her  influ- 
ence over  him  was  like,  is  apparent  to  those  who  have  read  the 
letters  which  passed  between  them,  and  which  have  been  quoted 
so  abundantly  by  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes.  John  Lawrence,  in 
like  manner,  kept  up  a correspondence  with  her  throughout 
his  life,  crammed  as  it  was  with  multitudinous  cares  and  multi- 
farious occupations,  till  death  came  between  them.  What  he, 
too,  felt  towards  her  is  clear  from  the  remark  which  in  the  bit- 


12 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 8 i 1-29 


terness  of  his  soul  was  wrung  from  him  when  he  heard  of  her 
death,  that  he  would  never  have  gone  to  India  as  Viceroy  had 
he  thought  that  he  would  never  see  her  again.  The  letters 
which  passed  between  him  and  her,  and  which  up  to  that  time 
had  been  religiously  preserved  by  each,  were  deliberately  de- 
stroyed by  the  survivor  on  his  return  from  India.  He  objected 
—as  who  in  his  heart  of  hearts  does  not  object  ? — to  the  pub- 
lication of  essentially  private  letters  ; but  what  the  loss  has  been 
to  the  biographer  in  attempting,  with  such  materials  as  are  at 
his  disposal,  to  do  justice  to  the  inner  and  gentler  side  of  Lord 
Lawrence’s  character,  the  few  letters  to  her  which  have  ac- 
cidentally come  into  his  hands  too  surely  show.  Could  they 
have  been  published  with  a clear  conscience,  they  would  have 
shown  by  themselves  that  John  Lawrence  was  as  tender  as  he 
was  strong.  The  loss,  I repeat,  to  the  biographer  is  incalcu- 
lable ; but  at  least  he  is  saved,  in  this  instance,  one  of  his  great- 
est difficulties — the  task  of  deciding,  where  the  correspondence 
is  so  sacred,  what  he  will  have  the  courage  to  publish  or  the 
heart  to  withhold. 

Such,  in  outline,  was  the  home  and  such  the  home  influences 
on  the  Lawrence  children.  It  was  a locomotive  home  enough. 
Richmond  from  the  year  1809,  Guernsey  from  1812,  Ostend  in 
1815,  and  Clifton  thenceforward  to  the  old  Colonel’s  death  ; 
these  were  the  successive  headquarters  of  the  family  from  the 
time  when  Alexander  Lawrence  returned  to  England  from 
India.  In  the  year  1813  occurred  the  first  considerable  break 
in  the  family.  The  three  elder  sons,  Alexander,  George,  and 
Henry,  were  sent  off  from  Guernsey  to  the  ‘ Free  Grammar 
School  of  Londonderry.’  It  was  situated  within  the  walls  of  the 
famous  maiden  fortress,  close  to  the  side  of  St.  Augustine’s 
church,  and  was  under  the  care  of  their  maternal  uncle,  the 
Rev.  James  Knox.  It  was  then  in  a transition  state,  for  in  the 
following  year  its  governors  set  an  example  which  the  govern- 
ing bodies  of  the  great  schools  of  London  are  only  just  begin- 
ning to  imitate.  They  authorised  its  removal  from  the  interior 
of  the  city,  and  with  the  active  assistance  of  the  then  Bishop  of 
Uerry,  Dr.  William  Knox,  they  re-erected  it  on  a much  more 
advantageous  site. 

The  spot  selected  was  a hill  in  the  suburbs,  commanding  a 
fine  view  of  the  historic  fortress  and  of  the  steep  banks  and 
pretty  country  villas  on  the  other  side  of  the  wide  ship-traversed 
river  Foyle  which  flows  beneath,  and  which  has  since  that  time 


i S i 1-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


13 


given  to  the  school  the  more  ambitious  name  of  Foyle  College. 
It  was  a spot  well  calculated  to  stir  the  generous  enthusiasm 
and  the  historical  sympathies  of  the  boys  who  were  there 
brought  up.  But,  over  and  above  this,  it  possessed  what  must 
have  been  a special  recommendation  in  the  eyes  of  the  stern 
old  Colonel,  in  that  his  sons,  being  relatives  of  the  head  master, 
would  be  able  to  remain  there  the  whole  year  through.  In 
other  words,  they  were  to  have  no  holidays  ; and  during  the 
years  that  they  remained  there,  I can  find  no  trace  of  any  unpro- 
ductive expenditure  of  time  or  money  on  the  journeys  from 
Guernsey  to  Londonderry  and  back. 

Here,  then,  let  us  leave  for  the  present  the  three  elder  broth- 
ers and  see  how  it  was  faring  meanwhile  with  their  younger 
brother  John.  One  or  two  facts  only  have  been  preserved 
about  him.  His  sister  Letitia  used  to  relate  that  her  motherly 
feelings  had  been  first  called  out  towards  him  from  the  day  on 
which  she  found  him  crying  violently  and  at  last  discovered 
that  a bit  of  hot  coal  had  somehow  lodged  itself  between  his 
cheek  and  his  baby  cap-strings,  and  had  inflicted  a mark  upon 
him  which  was  to  last  all  his  life.  Another  incident  has  a more 
melancholy  interest  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  calamity 
which  befell  him  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life  ; for  it  was  the 
shadow  of  his  cross  that  was  to  be.  When  he  was  about  five 
years  old  he  had  a bad  attack  of  ophthalmia,  which  obliged 
him  to  be  kept  in  a darkened  room  for  a whole  year.  He 
would  lie  on  a sofa,  holding  the  hand  of  his  sister  or  his  nurse 
Margaret  while  they  read  aloud  to  him.  It  was  their  care  of 
him  during  this  period  which  helped  to  call  forth  the  devotion  he 
ever  afterwards  felt  for  both,  and  he  would  often  say  in  his  later 
life  that  he  would  be  able  to  recognise  any  when  and  anywhere, 
by  its  feeling  the  hand  of  either  of  his  kind  attendants.  Some 
of  his  earliest  recollections  were  associated  with  that  eventful 
year  which  saw  the  hundred  days’  campaign  and  heard  the 
roar  of  Waterloo  ; and  he  tells  us  in  a fragment  of  autobio- 
graphy which  has  come  into  my  hands,  that  being  thrown  much 
upon  his  father’s  society  owing  to  the  absence  of  his  elder 
brothers,  he  used  to  accompany  him  in  his  walks  and  listen  to 
the  stirring  tales  of  his  adventurous  and  ill-requited  campaigns. 
It  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  the  disappointed  veteran  that 
he  might  be  arousing  by  these  very  tales  within  the  boy’s 
breast  military  hopes  and  aspirations  which  one  day  he  might 
find  it  difficult  to  quench.  For  he  had  resolved  in  the  bitterness 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


14 


1811-29 


of  his  heart  that  no  son  of  his,  if  he  could  help  it,  should  join 
the  service  which  had  served  him  so  ill. 

One  incident  of  John  Lawrence’s  early  life  connected  with 
his  nurse  Margaret,  whom  he  loved  so  tenderly,  I am  able  to 
relate  from  the  recollection  of  his  youngest  daughter  Maude, 
almost  in  his  own  words.  He  was  fond  of  telling  it,  and  few  . 
that  ever  heard  Lord  Lawrence  tell  a story  were  likely  alto- 
gether to  forget  it : — 


One  day  when  I was  about  four  or  five  years  old  and  was  staying  with 
my  father  and  mother  at  Ostend,  my  nurse  Margaret  was  sent  to  market 
to  purchase  food  for  the  day.  She  was  sent  with  a 5/.  note,  and  was  ordered 
to  bring  back  the  change.  When  I heard  that  my  nurse  was  going  to  the 
market,  I at  once  went  to  my  mother  to  get  permission  to  go  with  her. 
I was  always  fond  of  going  out  with  her.  She  used  to  tell  me  all  kinds 
of  weird  stories,  which  would  fill  me  with  a kind  of  awe  for  her.  So  I 
trotted  along  by  her  side,  she  amusing  me  as  she  went  along.  When  we 
got  to  the  market  she  purchased  several  things — at  one  stall  a pair  of 
fowls,  at  another  vegetables,  here  bread  or  flour,  and  there  something 
else  necessary  for  our  household.  Now  it  happened  that  though  Margaret 
had  often  been  there,  and  was  well  known,  she  had  never  had  so  much 
money  with  her  before.  This  excited  suspicion.  She  could  not  get  her 
note  changed,  many  people  thinking  she  had  not  come  by  it  fairly.  At  last 
there  was  a great  hubbub,  the  shop-people  accusing  her,  while  she  main- 
tained her  innocence.  It  was  finally  settled  by  their  taking  her  before 
the  magistrate  to  be  examined.  He  asked  her  who  she  was,  who  was  her 
master,  and  what  was  her  occupation.  She  was  dreadfully  confused  and 
frightened,  and  could  hardly  say  a word.  All  she  could  get  out  was  that 
her  master  was  Colonel  Lawrence  and  that  his  little  boy  was  with  her. 
On  hearing  my  name,  I began  to  feel  very  important,  and  thought  I 
would  now  come  forward  and  speak  up  for  my  nurse,  so  out  I came  from 
behind  her — for  I had  clung  to  her  all  the  time — and  said  in  as  loud  a 
voice  as  I could  manage,  ‘ Why,  Sir,  it’s  our  old  nurse  Margaret,  she  is 
a very  good  woman,  and  all  that  she  says  is  quite  true  ; I came  to  the 
market  with  her  to  buy  our  food,  and  papa  gave  her  the  money.  I think 
that  if  you  will  let  her  go,  you  will  do  right,  as  my  father  knows  that 
what  I say  is  quite  true.’  The  magistrate  saw  quite  clearly  now  that 
everything  was  aboveboard,  so  we  were  allowed  to  go  home  in  peace. 
He  said  to  me  before  we  went  away,  ‘ Well  done,  little  man  ; you  spoke 
up  for  your  nurse  bravely.’  I was  tremendously  stuck  up  by  this,  and 
walked  home  with  my  nurse,  feeling  immensely  important  and  thinking 
that  I must  now  take  care  of  Margaret,  and  not  she  of  me. 

When  the  three  elder  brothers  left  Foyle  in  1819,  John  was 
brought  for  the  first  time  into  the  society  of  his  brother  Henry, 
that  brother  whose  life  and  character  were  to  be  so  closely  con- 


iSii-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


15 


nected  and  vet  to  form  so  strong  a contrast  to  his  own.  They 
went  together  to  a Mr.  Gough’s  school  at  College  Green,  Bristol. 
It  was  a day  school,  and  John,  ‘ a little  urchin,’  as  he  describes 
himself,  ‘ of  eight,’  used  to  trudge  along  four  times  a day  with 
unequal  steps  by  the  side  of  his  brother  Henry,  ‘a  bony  power- 
ful boy’  of  thirteen,  over  the  hill  which  separates  Clifton  and 
Bristol.  His  sister  recollects  how,  tired  out  by  his  walks  and 
his  work,  he  used  to  lie  at  night  at  full  length  upon  the  hearth- 
rug preparing  his  lessons  for  the  following  day.  One  reminis- 
cence of  these  school-days  has  already  been  quoted  by  Sir  Her- 
bert Edwardes  in  John  Lawrence’s  own  words,  but  it  is  too 
authentic  a record  not  to  find  a place  again  here  : — 

I remember,  when  we  were  both  at  school  at  Bristol,  there  was  a poor 
Irish  usher  named  O’Flaherty,  and  he  had  done  something  to  offend  the 
master  of  the  school,  who  called  up  all  the  boys  and  got  on  the  table 
and  made  us  a great  speech,  in  which  he  denounced  poor  O’Flaherty  as 
‘ a viper  he  had  been  harbouring  in  his  bosom  ; ’ and  he  also  denounced 
some  one  of  the  boys  who  had  taken  O’Flaherty’s  part  as  ‘ an  assassin 
who  had  deeply  wounded  him ! ’ I was  a little  chap  then,  eight  years 
old,  and  I did  not  understand  what  it  was  all  about ; but  as  I trotted 
home  with  Henry,  who  was  then  fourteen,  I looked  up  and  asked  who 
the  ‘ assassin  ’ was  who  had  * wounded  ’ the  master.  Henry  very  quietly 
replied,  ‘ I am  the  assassin.’  I remember,  too,  in  connection  with  this 
very  same  row,  seeing  Henry  get  up  very  early  one  morning  (we  slept 
in  the  same  room)  and  I asked  where  he  was  going.  He  said  to  Bran- 
don Hill  to  fight  Thomas.  Thomas  was  the  bully  of  the  school.  I asked 
if  I might  go  with  him,  and  he  said,  ‘ Yes,  if  you  like.’  I said,  ‘ Who  is 
to  be  your  second  ? ’ Henry  said,  * You,  if  you  like.’  So  off  we  went  to 
Brandon  Hill  to  meet  Thomas,  but  Thomas  never  came  to  the  rendez- 
vous and  we  returned  with  flying  colours,  and  Thomas  had  to  eat  humble 
pie  in  the  school.  Henry  was  naturally  a bony  muscular  fellow,  very- 
powerful  ; but  that  fever  in  Burmah  seemed  to  scorch  him  up,  and  he 
remained  all  the  rest  of  his  life  very  thin  and  attenuated. 

At  such  a school,  discipline  was  not  likely  to  be  of  the  mildest 
kind,  and  the  birch  was  probably  the  only  instrument  of  moral 
suasion  recognised.  At  all  events,  years  afterwards,  when  some 
one  asked  Lord  Lawrence  whether  there  had  been  much  flog- 
ging at  his  school,  he  replied,  with  grim  satisfaction  and  Spar- 
tan brevity — and  I have  pretty  well  ascertained  by  the  ex- 
haustive method  that  the  school  must  have  been,  not  Foyle  or 
Wraxall,  but  College  Green — ‘ I was  flogged  every  day  of  my 
life  at  school  except  one,  and  then  I was  flogged  twice.’ 


1 6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


The  time  came  for  him  to  pass  to  a milder  rule,  and  in  1823, 
being  then  twelve  years  of  age,  he  was  transferred  to  his  uncle’s 
care  at  Foyle.  For  two  centuries  past,  this  school  had  been  to 
the  North  of  Ireland  much  what  Tiverton  was  for  two  centuries 
to  Devonshire  and  Cornwall ; a school,  that  is,  which  gave  a 
good,  but  hardly  a first-rate,  education  to  the  sons  of  the  sur- 
rounding gentry  ; and  if,  as  I have  already  remarked,  the  site 
itself  was  calculated  to  stimulate  the  energies  of  the  boys  of 
the  Lawrence  generation,  how  much  more  ought  the  brilliant 
careers  of  those  who  were  boys  together  then  to  stimulate  those 
of  the  present  day  ! Strange  that  a small  school  in  the  North 
of  Ireland  should  have  contained,  within  a period  of  a few  years 
only,  those  who  were  to  do  such  good  service  to  the  State  in 
war  and  in  peace  as  Lord  Gough,  the  bravest  of  soldiers  and 
most  reckless  of  generals,  the  man  who  claimed  the  most  doubt- 
ful of  victories  at  Chillianwallah  and  gained  a crowning  one  at 
Gujerat ; as  Sir  George  Lawrence,  the  lion-hearted  and  chival- 
rous prisoner  of  Afghan  and  Sikh  ; as  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  as 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  ! Stranger  still 
that  the  last  three  of  these  men  should  have  lived  to  rule  the 
Punjab  in  concert,  and  play  by  universal  consent  a foremost 
part  in  that  struggle  of  heroes  which  saved  our  Indian  Em- 
pire ! 

I cannot  find  by  careful  inquiry  among  the  few  schoolfellows 
of  John  Lawrence  who  have  survived  him  that,  even  now, 
looking  back  in  the  light  of  all  that  he  has  done,  they  saw,  or 
think  that  they  saw,  any  promise  of  his  future  eminence.  He 
cast  no  shadow  before  him.  Robert  Montgomery  then,  as  ever 
afterwards — at  Wraxall,  in  India,  and  in  South  Kensington — his 
intimate  friend  and  companion,  only  recollects  that  he  was 
‘determined  and  quick-tempered,  and  that  in  their  walks  to- 
gether he  used  to  entertain  him  with  long  stories  of  sieges  and 
battles.’  As  a boy  and  as  a young  man  he  read,  as  he  said 
himself,  ‘ much  history  and  biography  in  a rather  desultory 
way  ; ’ and  it  is  to  this  kind  of  reading  that,  man  of  action  as 
he  was  throughout  his  life,  he  owed  such  traces  of  culture  as 
he  possessed  or  would  ever  have  cared  to  claim.  1 1 is  life  from 
the  time  that  he  set  foot  in  India  left  no  room  at  all  for  that 
leisure  which  is  the  necessary  condition  of  high  culture.  But, 
remembering  how  crammed  was  his  life  with  action,  his  his- 
torical knowledge  was  remarkable.  He  was  accurately  ac- 
quainted with  the  campaigns  of  the  leading  generals  of  ancient 


EARLY  LIFE. 


1 7 


1S1 1-29 

v 

and  modern  times,  and  he  could  discuss  them  alike  with  the 
wide  sweep  of  a theorist  and  with  all  the  minute  knowledge  of 
a specialist.  I well  remember,  shortly  before  his  death,  being 
struck  with  the  minute  knowledge  he  showed  in  a casual  con- 
versation on  a period  of  ancient  history — the  campaigns  of 
Hannibal — of  which  I had  just  then  been  making  a special 
study.  Plutarch’s  ‘ Lives  ’ were  always  in  his  hands  at  school 
and  at  home,  and  in  after  life  he  used  to  say,  half  humorously, 
half  seriously,  that  when  he  was  in  doubt  in  any  difficult  matter 
he  would  turn  over  its  pages  till  he  came  to  some  suggestive 
passage.  And  these  ‘ sortes  Plutarchianae  ’ seem  to  have  been 
on  one  or  two  critical  occasions  of  at  least  as  much  practical 
service  as  were  the  ‘ sortes  Virgil ianae  ’ to  the  scholar  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  or  the  haphazard  opening  of  the  Bible  to  the  un- 
lettered Christian  of  to-day.  But  I am  anticipating. 

In  any  case,  what  an  admirable  hunting-ground  would  Lon- 
donderry and  its  neighbourhood  be  to  a boy  who  was  fond  of 
history,  or  who  had  any  military  instincts.  To  roam  along 
the  ramparts  of  the  heroic  city  amidst  the  quaint  old  culverins 
which,  when  the  ammunition  was  exhausted,  hurled  bricks 
covered  with  lead  against  the  foe ; to  visit  the  cathedral, 
crammed  as  it  is  with  relics  and  trophies  of  the  siege  ; to 
climb  its  tower,  whence  the  sentries  peered  with  hungry  eyes 
for  those  distant  sails  far  down  the  Foyle  which  were  to 
bring  the  promised  aid,  and  which,  when  they  at  length  ap- 
peared, did  so  only  to  disappear  again  ; to  row  to  the  spot 
where  once  frowned  the  terrible  boom,  which  the  ‘ Mountjoy’ 
and  the  ‘ Phoenix  ’ forced  at  last,  bringing  to  the  starving 
garrison  food  which  they  could  hardly  stagger  forth  to  grasp  in 
their  skeleton  fingers  ; to  stand  in  the  pulpit  where  Ezekiel 
Hopkins,  the  craven  bishop,  preached  submission  to  the  powers 
that  be,  and  George  Walker,  the  patriot  hero,  thundered  resist- 
ance to  the  death  ; to  pass  through  the  gate  which  the  traitor 
Lundy  would  have  thrown  open,  and  to  visit  the  spot  whence, 
Judas-like,  when  he  was  detected,  he  slunk  down  the  wall  into 
the  outer  darkness  ; to  join  the  ’prentice-boys  when  they  celebrate 
their  feast  of  Purim,  and  still  hang  in  effigy  the  Haman  of  their 
race  and  creed  ; — all  this  would  invest  with  something  of  histori- 
cal romance  the  everyday  life  of  even  the  most  matter-of-fact 
boys  at  school,  even  as,  to  this  day,  it  kindles  into  wild  enthusi- 
asm the  sober-minded  Puritans  of  the  surrounding  country. 

The  sports  of  the  boys  at  Foyle  College  partook  of  the  spirit- 
Vol.  I 2 


i8 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


stirring  and  heroic  character  of  their  surroundings.  There 
were  about  a hundred  boys  in  the  school,  the  boarders  being 
chiefly  the  sons  of  the  clergy  and  gentry  of  the  adjoining  coun- 
ties ; the  day  scholars  the  sons  of  the  citizens  of  Derry.  The 
broad  distinction  often  drawn  by  boys  themselves  between 
boarders  and  day  scholars  was  emphasised  at  Foyle  by  a mimic 
warfare,  carried  on  sometimes  in  the  shape  of  single  combats 
between  champions  representative  of  each  party,  sometimes 
between  the  collective  forces  of  the  whole. 

Here  is  an  account  of  one  of  these  Homeric  combats,  which  I 
give  almost  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Kennedy,  a contemporary  and 
brother-in-law  of  John  Lawrence,  who  bore,  as  we  shall  see,  no 
small  part  in  it. 

A fortress  had  been  constructed  of  stiff  clay  by  the  boarders 
on  a hillock  in  a field  behind  the  school.  This  fortress  was 
regularly  manned  and  relieved  at  six  hours’  interval  through- 
out the  day  and  night.  The  night  operations  were  hazardous 
in  more  ways  than  one,  for  the  relieving  force  had  first  to  es- 
cape the  notice  of  the  masters  as  they  crept  surreptitiously  out 
of  the  windows  of  the  school-house.  The  day  boys,  on  their 
part,  would  sometimes  rise  from  their  beds  in  a body  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  and  march  rapidly  from  Derry  to  the  assault. 

Many  a fierce  onslaught  and  stubborn  defence  (says  Dr.  Kennedy) 
did  our  fortress  witness  beneath  the  light  of  the  moon  and  stars.  The 
weapons  in  use  on  these  occasions  were,  happily,  not  shelalahs,  but 
cauliflower-stalks  or,  as  we  used  to  call  them,  * kale  runts  ’ — no  bad  sub- 
stitute for  shelalahs,  when  held  by  the  lighter  end  and  swung  by  a power- 
ful arm.  Nor  let  it  be  imagined  that  there  was  not  a fair  proportion  of 
casualties,  and  that  the  list  of  wounded  was  not  sufficiently  imposing. 
My  own  career  was  cut  short  for  a time,  and  very  nearly  for  all  time,  in 
one  of  these  engagements.  During  a brilliant  sally  with  my  comrades 
from  the  fortress,  my  retreat  was  cut  off,  and  I found  myself  resisting  in 
a hand-to-hand  combat  two  fellows  each  a head  taller  than  myself.  I 
had  managed  to  reach  the  top  of  a high  fence  which  gave  me  a great  ad- 
vantage, but  behind  me  was  a perpendicular  fall  of  twelve  feet  on  to  a 
road.  They  called  on  me  to  surrender  at  discretion  ; my  answer  was  a 
blow  with  my  kale  runt  on  the  head  of  one  of  my  assailants.  His  com- 
panion caught  me  off  my  guard,  and  dealt  me  a blow  on  my  legs  which 
hurled  me  headlong  on  the  road  below.  I had  not  then  learned  the 
knack  of  falling  on  my  shoulders,  and  my  skull  came  first  in  contact 
with  the  road.  Fortunately  it  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  as  to  my 
neck,  as  my  assailant  remarked  when  I had  recovered,  it  was  not  to  be 
broken , it  was  reserved  for  a different  fate.  I escaped  with  a severe -con- 
cussion of  the  brain. 


8i 1-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


19 


Such  were  the  amusements  which  nerved  the  courage  and 
braced  the  sinews  of  the  Lawrence  generation. 

It  is  illustrative  of  a savagery  in  schoolboy  nature  which 
has  now  nearly  passed  away,  as  well  as  of  that  mixture  of  na- 
tional characteristics  in  John  Lawrence  to  which  I have  already 
alluded,  that  on  his  first  going  to  his  English  school  at  Clifton 
he  was  nicknamed  ‘ Paddy,’  and  received  many  kicks  as  being 
an  Irishman  ; while,  on  being  transferred  to  his  Irish  school  at 
Foyle,  he  was  nicknamed  ‘ English  John,’  and  received  many, 
probably  a good  many  more,  kicks,  as  being  an  Englishman. 

What  the  character  of  the  education  at  Foyle  College  was 
like  we  are  left  to  judge  by  the  results,  and  by  casual  remarks 
in  after  life  of  the  two  brothers.  That  it  was  not  a first-rate 
education  is  probable  enough.  ‘For  my  part,’  says  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence,  ‘my  education  consisted  in  kicks:  I was  never 
taught  anything.’  But  boys  are  often  apt  in  perfect  good  faith 
to  attribute  to  their  school  what  is  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  their 
own  shortcomings.  John  Lawrence,  in  the  fragment  of  auto- 
biography already  cpioted,  probably  states  the  case  with  greater 
fairness  thus  : ‘ At  school  and  at  college  I did  not  work  regu- 
larly and  continuously,  and  did  not  avail  myself  of  the  oppor- 
tunities which  offered  for  securing  a good  education.  But  I 
worked  by  fits  and  starts.  . . . When  I went  to  college  (Hailey- 
bury)  I was  a fair  Latin  and  mathematical  scholar,  and  a poor 
Greek  one  ; but  I had  read  a great  deal  in  a desultory  fashion, 
particularly  of  history  and  biography,  and  was  generally,  for 
my  age,  well-informed.’ 

The  religious  training  was  more  persistent  than  judicious. 
A kind-hearted  sister  of  the  head  master  used  to  take  this  part 
of  the  education  under  her  special  charge,  and  would  send  for 
the  boys  one  by  one  from  their  pi  a)',  every  two  or  three  days, 
that  she  might  read  and  pray  with  them.  The  Lawrences,  being 
nephews  as  well  as  pupils,  got  a double  share  of  these  atten- 
tions, and  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  well  remembers  how  they 
used  to  slink  by  their  aunt’s  room  on  tiptoe  in  hopes  of  escap- 
ing. It  was  a hope  often  disappointed  ; for  the  door  would  open 
on  a sudden  and  the  vigilant  aunt  carry  them  off  in  triumph  to 
her  lecture.  It  is  appalling  to  think  of  the  concentrated  bat- 
teries that  must  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  their  devoted 
heads  during  holiday  time. 

If  the  seeds  of  John  Lawrence’s  deep  religious  convictions 
were  sown  now,  it  is  certain  that  they  long  lay  dormant,  and  it 


20 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


is  probable  that  it  was  to  a reaction  from  the  forcing  system  of 
Foyle  College  that  was  due  the  most  striking  characteristic  of 
his  religious  belief — its  reserve  and  its  unobtrusiveness.  He 
never  talked  of  religion,  hardly  ever  said  a word  that  was  dis- 
tinctly religious  even  to  his  intimate  friends  and  relations. 
Yet  everybody  knew  it  was  there.  Levity  and  irreligion  stood 
abashed  in  his  presence.  His  religion  seemed  to  be  too  sacred 
and  too  simple  to  admit  of  handling  in  common  talk.  It  was 
a plant  with  roots  so  deep  and  so  tender  that  he  would  not  al- 
low himself,  still  less  anyone  else,  to  pluck  it  up  to  see  how  it 
was  growing. 

In  1825  John  Lawrence  left  Foyle,  and  went  to  finish  the  first 
part  of  his  education  at  Wraxall  Hall,  a large  rambling  Eliza- 
bethan house  in  North  Wiltshire,  about  six  miles  from  Bath, 
which,  with  its  inner  court,  its  orchard,  and  several  large  gar- 
dens attached  to  it,  gave  ample  room  for  the  amusement  of  its 
inmates.  Robert  Montgomery,  John  Lawrence’s  fidus  Achates , 
and  one  or  two  other  Irish  boys,  accompanied  him  thither. 
And  from  a conversation  which  I have  had  with  one  of  his  few 
surviving  contemporaries — Mr.  Wellington  Cooper  of  Lincoln’s 
Inn — I recall  the  following: — 

John  Lawrence  was  tall  and  overgrown  ; I was  much  struck  by  the 
angular  formation  of  his  face.  He  was  rough  but  kindly  ; hot-tempered 
but  good-natured  withal.  We  had  a rough  enough  life  of  it  at  school  ; 
our  bedrooms  were  so  cold  that  the  water  used  to  freeze  hard  in  the 
basins,  and  the  doctor  used  to  remark  that  it  was  no  wonder  that  we 
were  all  in  such  good  health,  for  every  room  had  a draught  in  it.  This 
was  true  enough.  The  window-frames  of  our  bedroom  were  of  stone, 
and  an  iron  bar  across  the  centre  was  supposed  to  prevent  ingress  or 
egress.  Lawrence  managed  to  loosen  it  so  that  it  could  be  taken  out 
and  replaced  without  attracting  observation,  and  when  the  nights  were 
hot  he  would  creep  through  it  in  his  night-shirt  and,  reaching  the  ground 
by  the  help  of  a pear-tree  which  grew  against  the  wall,  would  go  and 
bathe  in  the  neighbouring  stream.  We  were  fast  friends,  and  in  the 
kindness  of  his  heart  he  would  have  done  anything  for  me.  I was  very 
fond  of  bird-nesting.  A swallow  had  built  its  nest  at  the  top  of  our 
chimney,  and  I expressed  a wish  to  get  at  it.  ‘ I’ll  get  the  eggs  for  you,’ 
said  John,  and  went  straight  to  the  chimney,  and  began  to  climb  up  it 
inside.  It  soon  became  too  narrow  for  his  burly  frame.  ‘ Never  mind, 
I’ll  get  them  yet,’  he  said,  and  at  once  went  to  the  window.  I and  my 
brother  followed  him  through  it,  and,  climbing  a wall  twelve  feet  high, 
which  came  out  from  one  end  of  the  house  and  formed  one  side  of  the 
court,  pushed  him  up  from  its  summit  as  far  as  we  could  reach  towards 


iS i 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


21 


the  roof.  He  was  in  his  night-shirt,  with  bare  feet  and  legs  ; but,  avail- 
ing himself  of  any  coign  of  vantage  that  he  could  find,  he  actually  man- 
aged to  climb  up  the  wall  of  the  house  by  himself.  When  he  reached 
the  roof,  he  crawled  up  the  coping  stones  at  the  side  on  his  knees,  and 
then  began  to  make  his  way  along  the  ridge  towards  the  chimney  ; but 
the  pain  by  this  time  became  too  great  for  human  endurance  : ‘ Hang  it 
all,’  he  cried,  ‘ I can’t  go  on  ! ’ and  he  had  to  give  it  up. 

The  amusements  at  Wraxall  were  very  different  from  those 
at  Foyle. 

There  was  little  fighting  and  little  cricket.  Marbles,  prisoner’s  base, 
and  kite-flying  were  our  chief  recreations.  Lawrence  was  good  at  mar- 
bles and  prisoner’s  base,  in  which  latter  game  he  used  often  to  over- 
balance himself,  much  to  our  amusement.  We  had  a big  kite  which  it 
would  take  five  or  six  boys  to  hold  ; there  was  a large  chain  on  the  door 
of  the  vast  range  of  old  stables,  which  no  one  of  us  could  hold  out  at 
length.  The  kite  was  attached  to  this  chain  and  would  sometimes  keep 
it  taut  for  hours  together.  The  kindness  of  heart  which  I remember  in 
John  Lawrence  at  school  was  vividly  recalled  to  me  by  an  anecdote  I 
heard  of  him  in  much  later  life.  A governess  who  was  taking  charge  of 
his  nieces  at  Southgate  heard  that  her  sister,  who  was  in  poor  circum- 
stances, was  ill  in  Paris  with  no  one  to  look  after  her.  Sir  John  at  once 
wrote  to  the  chaplain  at  the  English  Embassy  to  ask  him  to  find  her  out, 
to  transfer  her  to  more  comfortable  quarters  and  see  that  she  had  the 
best  medical  aid,  at  his  expense. 

Another  Wraxall  schoolfellow,  the  Rev.  F.  B.  Ashley,  vicar 
of  Woburn,  Buckinghamshire,  adds  one  or  two  touches  which 
should  be  preserved. 

Soon  after  Lawrence  reached  Wraxall  he  and  I became  great  friends  ; 
and  when  it  was  decided  that  I was  to  go  to  India,  which  was  his  desti- 
nation also,  and  we  were  given  the  same  work,  our  friendship  deepened 
and  we  became  sworn  allies.  He  was  naturally  taciturn,  and  I was 
equally  so  ; consequently  we  thought  more  than  talked  together.  Once 
I remember  his  coming  to  me  with  that  grand  brow  of  his  knit  with  the 
deepest  indignation,  and  saying  that  the  master  had  suspected  him  of 
something  gross.  I saw  how  the  matter  stood,  and  said,  ‘ You  are  in- 
nocent, but  nothing  can  be  done  except  to  hold  up  your  head  and  show 
you  are  incapable  of  such  baseness.’  My  intercourse  with  him  was  a 
happy  period  of  my  schoolboy  life.  His  family  had  come  to  live  at 
Clifton,  my  native  place,  and  w'e  were  always  together  in  the  holidays. 
One  day  we  had  a narrow  escape.  We  were  taking  a walk  in  holiday 
time  beyond  the  hot  wells  at  Clifton,  under  the  rocks,  in  the  winter. 
When  we  reached  St.  Vincent’s,  where  is  now  the  suspension  bridge,  we 
were  seized  with  the  rather  mad  idea  of  climbing  to  the  top.  The  ground 


22 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


was  covered  with  two  or  three  inches  of  snow,  and  before  we  got  very 
far  our  hands  became  painfully  cold  as  we  grasped  at  the  rocks  and  tufts 
of  grass  in  the  crevices.  Soon  they  were  quite  benumbed.  We  tried  to 
look  back,  but  it  was  impossible  to  return.  We  glanced  at  each  other 
and  then  made  a vigorous  push  for  it,  continually  lookUig  to  see  if  we  had 
hold,  for  we  could  feel  nothing,  our  hands  being  completely  numbed. 
We  arrived  somehow  at  the  top,  gave  rather  a solemn  look  at  each 
other,  and  without  making  a single  remark  proceeded  on  our  walk. 

The  boy  who  thus  held  his  tongue  and  thought  in  silence 
was  the  ‘ father  of  the  man  ’ who,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
when  a telegram  arrived  reporting  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny, 
spoke  not  a word  either  then  or  on  the  whole  of  that  day  to 
the  friend  and  high  official  who  was  with  him,  but  consumed 
his  own  thoughts  in  silence,  estimating  the  full  gravity  of  the 
crisis  and  pondering  the  methods  by  which  he  could  meet  and 
overcome  it. 

In  1827  came  the  turning  point  of  John  Lawrence’s  life. 
John  Hudlestone,  an  old  friend  of  the  family  who  had  risen  to 
high  office  in  the  Madras  Presidency,  had,  on  his  return  to 
England,  become  a director  of  the  East  India  Company  and  a 
Member  of  Parliament,  and  the  influence  and  patronage  which 
he  thus  acquired  he  used  with  a single  eye  for  the  benefit  of 
those  among  whom  the  best  years  of  his  life  had  been  passed. 
For  two  services  in  particular  his  name  deserves  to  be  grate- 
fully remembered  amongst  them.  It  may  perhaps  be  ques- 
tioned which  was  the  greater  of  the  two.  By  his  exertions  in 
Parliament  and  elsewhere  he  did  much  to  prepare  the  way  for 
the  abolition  of  suttee  by  Lord  William  Bentinck,  and  he  seat 
the  Lawrences  to  India. 

The  three  elder  brothers,  Alexander,  George,  and  Henry, 
had  already  received  from  him  appointments  in  the  Indian 
army  and  had  gone  off  to  India,  the  two  former  in  the  cavalry, 
the  latter,  for  fear  lest  it  should  be  said  that  no  Lawrence 
could  pass  for  the  artillery,  in  the  more  scientific  branch  of  the 
service.  It  was  now  John’s  turn,  but,  to  his  surprise  and  dis- 
gust, the  appointment  offered  to  him  was  an  appointment  not 
in  the  army,  but  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service.  His  father  had 
been  a soldier  before  him,  so  were  his  three  elder  brothers. 
The  stories  of  his  father’s  campaigns  to  which  he  had  listened, 
the  books  of  travel  and  of  history  which  he  had  read,  the  asso- 
ciations of  his  Londonderry  school, — all  had  combined  to  fill 
his  mind  with  military  aspirations,  and  now  he  would  go  to 


i S i 1-29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


23 


India  as  a soldier  or  not  go  at  all.  In  vain  did  his  father  point 
to  his  scars  and  talk  of  his  hard  service  and  his  scanty  pension. 
In  vain  did  Henry  Lawrence,  who  had  just  returned  from  India 
invalided  from  the  First  Burmese  war,  and  disgusted,  like  most 
young  officers  of  his  energy  and  capacity,  with  the  incapacity 
and  the  red-tapeism  which  seemed  to  block  the  way,  appeal  to 
arguments  which  were  likely  to  be  of  more  weight  in  his  broth- 
er’s eyes — the  greater  field  for  ability,  for  vigour,  and  for  use- 
fulness which  the  Civil  Service  afforded.  John  Lawrence 
stood  firm  ; and  had  there  not  been  an  influence  at  home  more 
powerful  than  that  of  either  his  father  or  brother,  it  is  likely 
that  he  would  have  stuck  to  his  determination  to  the  end,  and 
India,  when  the  time  came,  if  she  had  gained  a great  general, 
would  have  lost  a still  greater  ruler. 

How  the  matter  ended  I am  able  to  relate  in  the  words  of 
an  eyewitness,  one  of  the  earliest  and  latest  friends  of  the 
Lawrences,  who  happened  to  be  staying  at  Clifton  when  the 
knotty  question  had  to  be  decided.  The  testimony  which  she 
gives  incidentally  to  that  paramount  influence  which  now  and 
through  all  John  Lawrence’s  life  moulded  and  stimulated  him, 
will  be  observed. 

John  Lawrence’s  eldest  sister  (says  Mrs.  B ) was  an  extraordinary 

woman  : strong  of  mind  and  of  will,  quick  in  apprehension,  yet  sound 
and  sober  in  judgment,  refined  and  cultured,  with  a passionate  enthusi- 
asm for  all  that  was  4 pure  and  lovely,  and  of  good  report.’  In  a word, 
hers  was  a nature  possessed  by  the  highest  qualities  of  her  soldier 
brothers,  in  combination  with  feminine  gentleness  and  goodness.  She 
had  enjoyed  varied  advantages  in  the  society  in  which  her  lot  was  oc- 
casionally cast.  At  the  house  of  Mr.  Hudlestone,  among  other  distin- 
guished men,  she  had  often  met  Wilberforce  and  the  Thorntons,  and 
had  quietly  drunk  in  their  wit  and  conversation  from  the  sofa  to  which, 
as  an  invalid,  she  was  long  confined.  Perhaps  her  brother  Henry,  who 
more  nearly  resembled  her  in  character  and  disposition,  was  most  amen- 
able to  her  influence;  but  John,  too,  though  the  greater  independence 
of  character  manifested  in  his  after  life  was  early  developed,  cherished 
what  might  be  called  without  exaggeration  a boundless  reverence  for  all 
she  said  and  thought.  In  the  present  stern  conflict  between  duty  and 
inclination  the  family  ‘ oracle  ’ was  lovingly  resorted  to.  The  scene  in 
Letitia’s  room  can  never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  witnessed  it.  It  may 
have  been  the  crisis  in  John’s  life.  He  was  seated  at  the  foot  of  the  in- 
valid’s couch  in  earnest  debate  about  the  perplexing  gift.  With  all  the 
vehemence  of  his  ardent  boy  nature,  as  if  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  his 
own  decided  prepossessions,  and  perhaps  with  a bold  effort  to  win  the 


24 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1811-29 


assent  which  he  felt  to  be  indispensable,  he  exclaimed,  f A soldier  I was 
born,  and  a soldier  I will  be  ! ’ The  prudent  counsellor,  however,  ad- 
vised differently.  She  urged  him  without  hesitation  to  accept  the  boon, 
as  affording  in  every  way  advantages  unknown  to  the  military  life. 
Other  influences  no  doubt  conspired  with  hers  to  induce  him  to  make 
what  was  to  his  own  personal  feelings  and  aspirations  a great  self-sacri- 
fice, but  it  was  to  Letitia’s  calm  advice  and  good  judgment  that  he 
reluctantly  but  bravely  yielded.  She  may  be  said  indeed  to  have  turned 
the  scales,  and  thus  in  a measure  determined  an  illustrious  future. 

To  Haileybury  accordingly  John  Lawrence  went,  while 
Ashley,  his  Wraxall  friend,  had  to  go  to  Addiscombe  without 
him.  The  East  India  College  at  Haileybury,  whatever  may 
have  been  its  shortcomings,  did  a noble  work  in  its  day,  and 
one  for  which,  as  it  appears  to  me,  no  adequate  substitute  has 
yet  been  found.  It  gave  an  esprit  de  corps,  and  a unity  of  pur- 
pose, it  laid  the  foundations  of  lasting  friendships,  and  stimu- 
lated a generous  ambition  among  those  who  were  about  to  be 
engaged  in  one  of  the  grandest  tasks  which  has  fallen  to  the 
youth  of  any  country  or  any  age.  It  was  then  in  good  hands. 
Dr.  Joseph  Hallet  Batten,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, and  an  excellent  classical  scholar,  as  well  as  a high 
wrangler,  was  the  Principal,  and  with  him  worked  an  able 
staff  of  professors.  Among  them  were  the  Rev.  C.  W.  Le  Bas, 
who  was  dean  and  professor  of  mathematics  ; the  Rev.  Henry 
Walter,  who  had  been  second  wrangler,  professor  of  natural 
history  and  chemistry,  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most  genial 
of  men  ; W.  Empson,  who  had  lately  succeeded  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  in  the  professorship  of  law,  and  was  afterwards 
to  become  son-in-law  to  Francis  Jeffrey,  and  editor  of  the 
‘ Edinburgh  Review ; ’ and  the  Rev.  T.  R.  Malthus,  the  cele- 
brated political  economist,  who  was  professor  of  that  science 
and  also  of  history.  Among  the  Oriental  staff,  to  whom  the 
students  were  indebted  for  such  knowledge  of  Arabic,  Sanscrit, 
Persian,  Hindustani,  Bengali,  Telegu,  as  they  could  pick  up  in 
the  scanty  time  afforded  for  the  learning  of  those  languages, 
should  be  specially  mentioned  Mirza  Ibrahim,  an  accomplished 
scholar,  and  in  every  point  of  view  a remarkable  man. 

It  will  readily  be  believed  that  so  distinguished  a staff  of 
professors  drew  to  Haileybury  as  visitors  some  of  the  best 
known  men  in  the  country,  and  the  house  of  Malthus  in  parti- 
cular was  the  resort  of  philosophers  and  statesmen  from  all 
parts  of  Europe.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  pretty  clear  that 


i 8 i 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


25 


the  professional  staff  was  too  good  for  the  material  on  which  it 
had  to  work — youths  of  from  sixteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age. 
They  sometimes  lectured  over  their  pupils’  heads,  and  in  India 
it  was  a common  remark  among  thinking  civilians  that  the 
Haileybury  course  would  have  been  as  invaluable  as  it  would 
have  been  eagerly  sought  after,  if  it  only  could  have  been 
offered  to  them  at  a later  period  of  their  career. 

John’s  elder  brother,  Henry,  accompanied  him  with  parental 
care  on  his  first  visit  to  the  College,  on  July  22,  1827,  and, 
anxious  and  energetic  as  usual,  walked  up  and  down  the  library 
with  him,  busily  explaining  some  rather  recondite  matters 
which  he  thought  might  be  useful  in  the  impending  exami- 
nation. But  John  was  less  eager  to  receive  than  Henry  to 
impart  information,  and  an  anxious  parent,  observing  what 
was  passing,  begged  Henry  to  transfer  his  attentions  to  his 
son.  Henry  complied  ; the  questions  which  he  discussed  were 
duly  asked  in  the  papers  which  followed,  and  to  the  help 
thus  given  his  grateful  pupil  attributed  his  success  in  the  ex- 
amination. John,  on  his  part,  took  a fairly  good  place,  but 
nothing  more. 

At  that  time  the  demand  in  India  for  young  civilians  was  so 
great  that  the  usual  period  of  residence  at  Haileybury — four 
terms,  or  two  years — was  reduced  by  half,  or  even  more,  pro- 
vided the  candidate  was  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  was  able  to 
pass  the  necessary  examinations  with  distinction.  This  latter 
condition  John  was  able  to  fulfil  at  the  end  of  his  first  year; 
but  being  only  seventeen,  he  was  compelled  to  remain  at  Hailey- 
bury a second  year,  and  to  see  some  twenty  of  his  contempo- 
raries pass  out  before  him.  During  these  two  years  he  was 
‘ neither  very  idle  nor  very  industrious.’  He  managed  to  gain 
some  prizes  and  medals,  but  not  in  such  numbers  as  to  attract 
the  attention  of  those  about  him,  or  in  any  way  to  indicate  his 
brilliant  future.  In  his  second  term  he  carried  off  the  prize  for 
history  and  another  for  his  knowledge  of  Bengali.  In  his  third 
term  he  won  another  prize  for  Bengali,  and  was  second  in 
political  economy.  In  his  fourth  and  last  term  he  gained  a 
third  prize  for  Bengali — a language  of  which  the  future  Pun- 
jabi was  not  destined  to  make  much  use — and  the  gold  medal 
for  law.  The  highest  immediate  aim  of  an  industrious  and 
ambitious  Haileybury  student  was  to  pass  out  the  first  of  his 
term  to  his  own  presidency,  a distinction  gained  by  Charles 
Trevelyan  about  two  years  before.  John  Lawrence  passed  out 


26 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1S1 1-29 


third  for  Bengal,  a position  with  which  his  friends  and  he  him- 
self were  well  satisfied. 

Among  the  more  distinguished  of  his  contemporaries  at 
Haileybury  were  John  Thornton,  afterwards  well  known  as 
secretary  to  James  Thomason,  the  eminent  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of  the  North-West  Provinces ; Edward  Thornton,  his 
brother,  who  was  afterwards  one  of  the  ablest  lieutenants  of 
John  Lawrence  in  the  Punjab  and  was  brought  into  the  closest 
contact  with  him  in  the  most  critical  period  of  his  life,  the  dark 
days  of  1857  ; Michael  P.  Edgeworth,  also  a Punjab  Commis- 
sioner ; Martin  Gubbins,  the  well-known  Commissioner  of 
Oude  ; William  Frere,  who  rose  to  be  Member  of  the  Bombay 
Council ; John  Muir,  who  at  an  early  age  succeeded  in  winning 
a European  reputation  as  a profound  Sanscrit  scholar ; Donald 
McLeod,  one  of  Lawrence’s  most  trusted  assistants  in  the  Pun- 
jab, and  one  of  his  dearest  friends  ; and,  finally,  J.  II.  Batten, 
son  of  the  Principal,  and  afterwards  well-known  as  Commis- 
sioner of  Kumaon.  Batten  entered  Haileybury  on  the  same 
day  as  John  Lawrence  ; it  was  to  him  that  John  Lawrence 
specially  applied  his  familiar  term  of  ‘ comrade,’  and  it  is  to  his 
aid  that  I am  indebted  for  many  of  the  details  which  I am  able 
to  give  of  the  Haileybury  of  that  day. 

There  were  few  among  those  whose  names  I have  mentioned 
who  did  not  seem  likely  to  distinguish  themselves  in  India  at 
least  as  much  as  John  Lawrence.  It  is  significant  of  the  rather 
faint  impression  which  he  managed  to  make  upon  his  contem- 
poraries that  the  one  fact  which  Edward  Thornton  is  able  to 
recall  about  him  is  his  having  often  seen  his  somewhat  remark- 
able form  planted  in  the  centre  of  the  doorway  leading  from 
the  quadrangle  into  the  reading-room — a fact  which  he  charit- 
ably inclines  to  interpret  as  implying  that  John  Lawrence  fre- 
quented the  reading-room  rather  than  the  playing-ground.  And 
it  is,  perhaps,  more  characteristic,  and  certainly  more  amusing, 
to  hear  that  Batten,  having  struck  up  a friendship  with  the 
future  Governor-General,  was  often  told  by  his  father,  the 
Principal,  that  he  was  sorry  to  see  him  ‘ loafing  about  with 
that  tall  Irishman  instead  of  sticking  to  the  more  regular  stu- 
dents.’ 

The  pressure  put  upon  those  who  were  not  disposed  to  work 
on  their  own  account  was  never  great.  Lectures  were  over  at 
one  p.m.,  and  the  rest  of  the  day  was  entirely  at  the  disposal  of 
the  students.  The  college  was  situated  in  the  midst  of  an  open 


1 8 1 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


27 


heath  where  fine  air  was  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  It  was  a 
country  where  it  ‘ seemed  always  afternoon’ — ‘a  place,’ says 
Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  ‘ eminently  suited  for  roaming  and  saun- 
tering,’ an  occupation  which  seems  to  have  fallen  in  with  John 
Lawrence’s  tastes,  but  was  often  varied  by  visits,  which  were 
neither  allowed  nor  forbidden,  to  the  three  neighbouring  towns 
of  Hertford,  Ware,  and  Hoddesden,  which  unfortunately  lay  at 
an  equal  and  easy  distance  from  the  college.  Of  John  Law- 
rence’s general  characteristics  and  mode  of  life  under  such 
circumstances  I am  able  to  give  a good  notion  in  the  words  of 
his  friend  J.  H.  Batten. 

John  Lawrence  was  in  appearance  rugged  and  uncouth,  but  his  tall 
gaunt  figure  was  sufficiently  set  off  by  an  intelligent  face  and  by  his  high 
good  humour.  He  did  not  much  affect  general  society ; and  though, 
like  others,  he  sometimes  ‘ rode  in  the  dilly’  to  Ware  or  Hertford,  he 
on  the  whole  preferred  mooning  about  the  quadrangle  and  the  reading- 
room,  or  wandering  over  the  wild  neighbouring  heath,  not  uncommonly 
varying  the  game  of  fives  at  the  college  racquet-court  by  one  of  skittles 
or  bowls  or  quoits  behind  the  ‘ College  Arms,’  and  the  bad  beer  pro- 
cured at  this  and  neighbouring  hostels  was  often  recalled,  not  without 
regret,  in  after  life  by  the  exiles  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay.  Law- 
rence at  that  time  displayed  a good  deal  of  the  Irish  element,  and  he 
with  his  intimate  friend  Charles  Todd — who  died  after  a short  career  in 
India — first  initiated  me  into  the  mysteries  sacred  to  St.  Patrick’s  Day, 
Hallowe’en,  the  glorious,  pious,  and  immortal  memory  of  King  William, 
the  ’prentice-boys  of  Derry,  etc.  By  a stupid  and  inexcusable  failure  in 
Bengali,  I managed  to  come  out  only  sixth  in  my  last  term,  while  Law- 
rence was  third.  But  it  was  a failure  which  enables  me  to  record  a 
characteristic  anecdote.  On  that  great  final  day  of  our  Collegiate  ca- 
reer, the  28th  of  May,  1829,  my  father,  the  Principal,  was  in  high  good 
humour,  for  in  spite  of  the  disaster  just  described,  I had  delivered  be- 
fore a rather  brilliant  audience  in  the  Hall  a prize  essay  on  ‘ The  Power 
of  the  Romans  in  the  West  compared  with  the  British  in  the  East ; ’ and 
going  up  with  pretended  anger  to  John  Lawrence,  he  said  good  humour- 
edly,  ‘Oh,  you  rascal,  you  have  got  out  ahead  of  my  son  ; ’ to  which 
with  ready  wit  Lawrence  replied,  ‘ Ah,  Dr.  Batten,  you  see  it’s  all  con- 
duct j I.fear  Hallet  has  not  been  quite  so  steady  as  I ; ’ thus  turning  the 
tables  on  the  Principal,  who,  to  Lawrence’s  knowledge,  had  more  than 
once  remonstrated  on  my  ‘ loafing  about  with  that  tall  Irishman.’ 

This  brings  me  to  another  anecdote.  When  I was  at  home  on  fur- 
lough during  what  turned  out  to  be  the  Mutiny  year  (1857),  I went  to 
Brighton  to  pay  my  respects  to  Mr.  Le  Bas,  who  had  long  since  retired 
from  the  Haileybury  Principalship,  in  which  he  succeeded  my  father. 
Those  who  knew  the  man,  with  his  sharp  peculiar  voice,  and  his  hand 
to  his  ear,  can  easily  imagine  the  scene.  He  called  out  to  me,  ‘ Hallet, 


28 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


181 1-29 


who  is  this  John  Lawrence  of  whom  I hear  so  much?  ’ to  which  I re- 
plied, ‘ Don’t  you  remember  a tall,  thin  Irishman  with  whom  I much 
consorted,  who  once  kept  an  Irish  revel  of  bonfires  on  the  grass  plot 
opposite  to  Letter  C ; and  whom  you  forgave  on  account  of  his  Orange 
zeal  and  his  fun  ? ’ ‘ Aha ! ’ said  the  old  dean,  ‘ I remember  the  man  ; 

not  a bad  sort  of  fellow ; ’ and  then  he  burst  into  one  of  his  fits  of  laugh- 
ter, ending  with  the  dry  remark,  ‘ But  what  has  become  of  all  our  good 
students  ? ’ 

A letter  of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  who  preceded  John  Law- 
rence at  Haileybury  by  two  years,  adds  a few  touches  which 
should  be  preserved 

The  great  charm  of  Haileybury  was  its  thoroughly  rural  surroundings. 
I have  known  students  stand  at  the  college  gate  for  half-an-hour  together 
in  the  evening,  listening  to  the  nightingales  in  the  adjoining  woods. 
Bathing  in  the  Lea  in  the  Rye-House  meadows  was  a great  amusement 
in  the  summer  ; while  in  winter  I remember  a match  at  foot-ball  be- 
tween the  students  of  the  two  upper  and  two  lower  terms,  which  lasted 
over  several  days  and  finally  had  to  be  given  up  on  account  of  the  an- 
tagonistic spirit  it  elicited.  But  in  all  seasons  we  used  to  take  long 
walks  in  every  direction.  Athletic  exercises  were  not  in  vogue  in  those 
days  as  they  are  now,  and  if  these  were  less  than  the  average  at  Hailey- 
bury, it  was  owing  to  the  attractions  of  the  open  and  pleasant  country  in 
which  it  was  situated.  The  dissipation  for  which  some  of  the  students 
were  most  notorious  was  tandem-driving.  I remember  an  occurrence 
connected  with  it  which  amused  me  at  the  time,  and  may  be  still  worth 
repeating.  Two  students,  driving  a tandem,  met  Dean  Le  Bas  on  the 
road,  and  knowing  that  they  would  be  sent  for,  they  considered  together 
what  they  would  say.  When  the  remonstrance  came  theyjustified  them- 
selves by  saying,  ‘ Why,  sir,  there  is  no  harm  in  driving  two  horses 
abreast,  and  why  then  should  it  be  wrong  to  drive  them  one  in  front  of 
the  other  ? ’ To  this  Le  Bas  whistled  out  in  his  peculiar  way,  with  ready 
presence  of  mind,  ‘ Sir,  a tandem  carries  dissipation  on  the  face  of  it ; ’ 
which  is  perhaps  as  much  as  could  be  said  against  it. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  excellent  public  school  which  has 
now  taken  the  place  of  the  Old  India  College  at  Haileybury 
has  done  honour  to  itself  by  letting  into  the  wall  of  the  room 
C 54,  which  he  formerly  occupied,  a brass  plate  with  the  words, 
‘John  Lawrence,  1829,’ engraved  upon  it;  while  among  the 
dormitories  occupied  by  the  boys  which  have  received  the  names 
of  Haileybury  students  who  were  afterwards  distinguished  in 
India,  such  as  Trevelyan,  Ed  monstone,  Thomason,  Bartle 
Frere,  and  Colvin,  or  of  distinguished  Principals  of  the  old 
college,  such  as  Batten,  Le  Bas,  Melville,  there  is  none  which 


1 8 1 1—29 


EARLY  LIFE. 


29 


bears  so  illustrious  a name — a name  known,  as  Macaulay  would 
sav,  to  every  schoolboy — as  that  which  is  called  after  the  Chief 
Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  and  the  Governor-General  of 
India — ‘John  Lawrence.’ 

At  the  close  of  each  summer  and  winter  term  during  his 
residence  at  Haileybury,  John  Lawrence  regularly  repaired  to 
the  house  of  Mr.  Stevens,  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  in  Chelsea 
for  a week  or  ten  days  before  going  down  to  his  home  at  Clif- 
ton ; and  in  general  harmony  with  the  account  I have  given  of 
his  college  life  is  a second  contribution  of  Mrs.  B.,  a daughter 
of  Mr.  Stevens,  and  a life-long  friend  of  John  Lawrence.  It 
is  worth  preserving,  as  it  enables  us  to  see  something,  even  at 
this  early  period,  of  the  inner  and  gentler  side  of  his  rough 
character. 

Every  remembrance  (says  Mrs.  B.)  of  the  days  and  weeks  he  passed 
at  our  house  at  Chelsea  is  bright  and  pleasant.  They  are  associated  with 
a hilarity,  indeed  an  exuberance  of  innocent  glee,  to  which  he  himself, 
to  his  latest  years,  talking  of  our  house  as  the  ‘ elastic  house,’  loved  to 
refer.  He  gave  pleasure  to  everyone  ; even  Henry,  with  his  quiet  re- 
served nature,  regarded  with  quiet  complacency  the  frolics  of  his  young 
brother ; and  a venerable  Scotch  lady,  unaccustomed  to  such  ebulli- 
tions, yet  unable  to  resist  their  fascination,  could  venture  on  no  severer 
stricture  than — it  was  from  her  a compliment — 1 He  is  a diamond,  though 
a rough  one.’ 

No  work  was  done  while  he  was  in  the  house,  and  the  ‘ impositions  ’ 
inflicted  for  some  freak  at  the  college  were  handed  over  to  the  junior 
members  of  our  household,  who  copied  the  necessary  Persian  character 
as  best  they  could.  I well  remember  the  goodly  number  of  prize  vol- 
umes which  he  brought  in  his  portmanteau  from  term  to  term.  Speak- 
ing of  these,  he  would  say,  * They  are  Letitia’s  books  ; they  are  all  hers ; 
I should  not  have  had  one  of  them  but  for  her.  I work  with  her  in  my 
mind;  she  shall  have  every  one  of  them.’  The  same  declaration  of 
brotherly  gratitude  was  made  in  connection  with  the  highest  honour  that 
Haileybury  could  bestow — the  gold  medal ; and  when  he  got  to  Clifton, 
he  was  soon  at  the  foot  of  the  old  couch  with  the  grateful  tribute : ‘ Take 
them,’  he  said,  ‘ they  are  all  won  by  you.’ 


CHAPTER  II. 


LIFE  AT  DELHI.  1829—1834. 

We  have  now  followed,  with  the  help  of  such  scanty  records  as 
are,  at  this  distance  of  time,  recoverable,  the  career  of  John 
Lawrence  during  the  first  eighteen  years  of  his  life.  They  are 
in  no  way  especially  remarkable.  He  has  passed  through  three 
schools  and  the  East  India  College  at  Haileybury  without  their 
leaving  any  very  distinctive  mark  on  him,  or  lie  on  them.  He 
has  been  crossed  in  the  darling  wish  of  his  heart,  to  follow  the 
profession  of  his  father  and  three  elder  brothers.  The  one  rel- 
ative whom  we  have  seen  to  possess  an  extraordinary  influence 
over  him  has  used  it  to  shape — possibly,  as  it  may  have  seemed 
to  him,  to  thwart — his  destinies,  and  he  leaves  her  behind  him 
on  the  couch  of  an  invalid.  Strong,  rough,  warm-hearted,  self- 
reliant,  full  of  exuberant  merriment,  half-disciplined,  and  little 
more  than  half-educated,  with  the  Irish  element  in  his  character 
at  this  period  distinctly  overshadowing  the  Scotch,  he  leaves 
his  father’s  home,  hardly  expecting  to  see  him  again,  for  a pro- 
fession which  he  would  never  have  sought,  and  for  which  he 
deems  he  has  no  special  aptitude.  Scores,  nay,  hundreds,  of 
young  civilians  must  have  started  for  India  with  lighter  hearts 
and  with  hopes  apparently  better  founded  than  his. 

With  him  there  went  out  his  elder  brother,  Henry,  who  had 
already  seen  five  years  of  India  and  Indian  campaigning,  and 
had  been  driven  back  to  England  before  his  time,  fever-stricken, 
and  ‘so  reduced,’  as  an  entry  in  his  mother’s  diary  puts  it,  ‘ by 
sickness  and  suffering,  that  he  looked  more  than  double  his  age.’ 
John  Hudlestone,  the  kind  friend  who  had  given  the  elder 
brothers,  one  after  the  other,  their  appointments  in  India,  had 
indeed  consoled  Henry’s  broken-hearted  sister  when  he  first 
left  the  parental  home,  by  saying  to  her,  ‘ All  your  brothers  will, 
I think,  do  well,  but  Henry  has  so  much  steadiness  and  resolu- 
tion that  you  will  see  him  come  back  a general.  He  will  be 
“ Sir  Henry  Lawrence  ” before  he  dies.’  But  no  kind  friend, 


1829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


31 


so  far  as  I can  discover,  ventured  on  a like  prediction  with 
respect  to  John.  That  he  would  be  ‘Sir  John  Lawrence’  before 
he  died  would  have  seemed  unlikely  enough  to  the  most  san- 
guine of  his  friends,  or  the  most  appreciative  of  his  Haileybury 
tutors.  But  that  he  would  be  a chief  instrument  in  the  saving 
of  India,  that  he  would  be  Governor-General,  that  he  would  die 
‘ Lord  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab,’  would  have  seemed  as  absurd 
and  as  incredible  as  the  prediction  in  the  nursery  story  to  young 
Dick  Whittington,  that  he  would  one  day  become  Lord  Mayor, 
nay,  thrice  Lord  Mayor  of  London. 

John  Lawrence  passed  out  of  Haileybury  in  May,  1829,  but 
he  lingered  on  some  four  months  longer  in  England,  that  he 
might  have  the  ‘ benefit  of  his  brother  Henry’s  society  on  his 
voyage  out.’  ‘ Henry’s  presence  in  England,’  he  says  himself, 
* during  the  time  I was  at  Haileybury,  had  been  of  considerable 
advantage  to  me.  He  went  down  to  the  first  examination  with 
me,  and  stimulated  me  to  exertion  while  I was  there.’  It  seems 
strange  in  these  days  of  whirlwind  locomotion  when  a man  is 
thankful  to  be  allowed  to  leave  his  post  in  India  on  short  fur- 
lough and,  after  spending  a month  with  his  friends  at  home,  is 
back  at  his  work  again  before  his  three  months  are  up,  to  find 
that  John  Lawrence  spent  four  months  in  England  merely  that 
he  might  have  the  ‘benefit  of  his  brother’s  company  during  the 
voyage.’  But  there  were  no  steamers  in  those  days.  Worse 
still,  there  was  no  Overland  Route,  and  the  voyage  to  India 
round  the  Cape  was  sometimes  a matter,  as  the  brothers  were 
to  find  to  their  cost,  of  five  months  and  more. 

They  sailed  from  Portsmouth  on  September  2,  1829,  accom- 
panied by  Honoria,  the  sister  who  came  between  them  in  point 
of  age.  John  suffered  terribly,  as  he  always  did  in  later  life, 
from  sea-sickness.  It  was  six  weeks  before  he  could  leave  his 
berth.  At  one  time,  as  he  often  used  to  tell,  his  life  was  all 
but  despaired  of ; and  a terrible  hurricane  off  the  south  of 
Africa  showed  that  the  ‘ Cape  of  Storms  ’ was  still  true  to  its 
character.  But  in  the  intervals  of  comparative  comfort  the  two 
brothers  studied  hard  at  the  native  languages,  for  which  neither 
had  a turn,  but  which  each  knew  to  be  indispensable  fora  life 
of  usefulness  in  India.  They  did  not  reach  Calcutta  till  Febru- 
ary 9,  1830,  and  here  they  separated,  Henry  to  join  his  com- 
pany of  Foot  Artillery  at  Kurnal,  a large  military  station  to  the 
north  of  Delhi,  on  what  was  then  our  north-west  frontier  ; John, 
to  complete  in  the  College  of  Fort  William  such  study  of  the  na- 


32 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


tive  languages  as  was  necessary  before  he  could  enter  on  his  civil 
duties.  It  may  be  of  some  interest  to  remark  here  that  in  the 
same  year  with  John  Lawrence,  there  came  out  to  India  two  re- 
markable men — Alexander  Duff,  the  first  missionary  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  who  ‘set  to  work  almost  in  the  next 
street  to  him,’  and  Sir  Henry  Durand,  who  some  forty  years 
later  was  to  become  Foreign  Secretary  and  afterwards  col- 
league in  Council  of  the  young  ‘writer’  who  would  then  have 
risen  to  be  Governor-General. 

During  the  whole  time  that  John  Lawrence  was  in  the  College 
of  Fort  William  he  was  more  or  less  ill.  The  climate  did  not 
agree  with  him.  He  took  little  care  of  himself,  and  he  was  so 
much  depressed  in  spirits  that  he  thought  seriously  of  returning 
to  England.  He  has  often  been  heard  to  say  since  that  an  offer 
of  100I.  a year  in  England  in  those  dark  days  would  have  taken 
him  straight  home.  The  society  of  the  capital,  with  the  brilli- 
ant carriages  on  its  Mall,  its  morning  and  evening  canters  over 
the  Maidan,  its  balls  and  its  dinner-parties,  so  acceptable  to 
most  young  civilians,  seems  to  have  had  no  charms  for  him,  and 
perhaps  the  rough,  downright  young  Irishman,  who  then,  as 
ever  afterward,  cared  nothing  for  appearances,  would  have  made 
little  way  with  the  society  of  the  capital.  A pining  for  home 
and  friends  such  as  I have  described,  and  an  absolute  detestation 
of  India,  has  been  no  uncommon  thing,  even  among  those  who, 
like  John  Lawrence,  were  destined  afterwards  to  find  the  most 
appropriate  field  for  their  talents,  and  to  rise  to  the  highest 
eminence  there.  Not  even  ambition  and  the  charms  of  a ‘ study 
of  the  native  languages’  are  proof  .against  the  depressing  influ- 
ences and  enervating  vapours  of  the  City  of  Palaces  at  a time 
when  the  thermometer  is  standing  at  ninety  degrees  in  the 
shade.  Robert  Clive,  in  sudden  accesses  of  home-sickness, 
twice  over,  it  is  said,  while  he  was  a tenant  of  Writers’  Build- 
ings, at  Madras,  attempted  to  destroy  himself;  and  it  was  not 
until  he  had  assured  himself  that  the  pistol,  which  had  refused 
to  go  off,  was  properly  loaded,  that  he  determined  to  bear  up 
against  his  depression,  as  a man  reserved  for  something  great. 
Charles,  afterwards  Lord,  Metcalfe,  for  a whole  year  after  his 
arrival  in  India,  plied  his  father  with  piteous  appeals  to  obtain 
for  him  the  veriest  pittance  in  England  in  exchange  for  the 
miseries  of  exile.  So  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  John  Law- 
rence passed  through  a similar  slough  of  despond.  At  last  he 
managed  to  pass  the  necessary  examinations  in  Urdu  and  Per- 


1829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


33 


sian,  of  which  latter  language  he  remained  ever  afterwards  a 
colloquial  master  ; and  then,  instead  of  applying  for  a post  in 
one  of  the  more  settled  and  peaceful  provinces  of  Lower  Bengal, 
where  the  work  would,  comparatively  speaking,  be  one  of  rou- 
tine, he  was,  at  his  own  request,  gazetted  for  Delhi.1  This  ap- 
plication, as  we  shall  see,  gave  some  slight  intimation  of  the 
stuff  of  which  he  was  made.  There  was  now  no  more  inaction, 
no  more  halting  between  two  opinions.  He  had  put  his  hand 
to  the  plough  and  there  was  no  looking  back.  He  shook  him- 
self, like  Samson,  and  awoke  to  his  work.  From  the  present 
moment  to  the  very  end  of  his  official  life,  we  shall  find  no 
parallel  to  the  inaction  of  the  four  months  spent  in  England  be- 
fore leaving  it  for  India,  or  to  the  depression  which  seems  to 
have  dominated  him  during  the  ten  months  he  spent  in  Calcutta 
before  embarking  in  his  active  work.  There  was,  henceforth, 
no  nervous  looking  forward  to  what  might  be,  or  backward  to 
what  might  have  been.  To  do  the  thing  that  lay  before  him,  to 
do  it  thoroughly,  to  do  it  with  all  his  might,  not  regarding  the 
consequences  and  not  turning  either  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left 
— this  was  henceforward  the  ruling  principle  of  his  life,  and  to 
that  ruling  principle  who  shall  say  how  much  of  his  success  was 
owing  ? 

A breathing  space  of  some  months  was  usually  allowed  to 
young  civilians,  after  passing  their  examination,  before  they 
were  expected  to  be  at  their  post.  But  John  Lawrence  was 
off  to  his  at  once.  The  method  of  travelling  usual  in  those 
days  was  the  comparatively  easy  one  of  ‘ trek  ’ up  the  Ganges. 
But  John  preferred  the  more  rapid  mode  of  palanquin  dawk, 
and  managed  to  accomplish  the  distance  of  nine  hundred  miles 
in  eighteen  days.  The  motives  which  induced  him  to  select 
the  Delhi  district  as  his  first  field  of  action  are  not  far  to  seek. 


1 I have  not  thought  it  desirable  or  practicable,  in  a work  which  quotes  so  largely 
from  documents  of  a bygone  generation,  and  deals  with  events  which  ought  to  stereo- 
type for  ever,  in  the  memories  of  Englishmen,  the  names  of  so  many  Indian  places 
in  the  form  in  which  they  were  then  known,  to  attempt  any  accurate  system  of  trans- 
literation. It  is  difficult  to  a biographer  of  John  Lawrence,  steeped  as  he  must 
necessarily  be  in  the  writings  of  his  time,  even  to  think  of  Delhi  as  ' Dilhi,’  of  Fero- 
zepore  as  ‘ Firozpur,’  of  Cawnpore  as  ‘ Kahnpur,'  of  Lucknow  as  ‘Lakhnao. ' To 
him  the  capital  of  the  Moguls  can  never  be  otherwise  than  Delhi,  and  the  capital  of 
Oude  must  always  remain  Lucknow.  I have  therefore,  in  the  case  of  the  more  im- 
portant names  of  men  and  places  which  occur  repeatedly  in  the  letters  and  life  of 
John  Lawrence,  thought  it  best  to  adhere  to  the  spelling  of  the  time  rather  than  to 
follow  the  more  accurate  system  of  spelling  and  of  accentuation  which  has  been 
adopted  by  a later  generation. 

Vol.  I. — 3 


34 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


It  was  not  that  the  work  would  be  easy  and  straightforward, 
or  the  inhabitants  tractable  and  submissive.  On  the  contrary, 
the  work  was  as  arduous  and  exacting,  and  the  inhabitants  as 
turbulent  and  warlike,  as  could  have  been  found  within  the 
Company’s  dominions.  But  for  this  very  reason  it  was  likely 
to  afford  the  best  preparation  for  whatever  might  come  after- 
wards. 

And  now  that  we  have  followed  John  Lawrence  to  the  great 
city  which,  with  the  surrounding  district,  is  for  the  next  thir- 
teen years,  to  prove  so  admirable  a training  ground  for  his 
great,  but,  hitherto,  quite  undeveloped  capacities,  and,  some 
twenty-five  years  later,  is  to  witness  the  crowning  achievement 
of  his  life — its  recapture  from  the  mutineers — it  will  be  well 
to  take  just  such  a brief  retrospect  of  its  history  and  antece- 
dents as  may  enable  us  better  to  understand  the  extent  to  which 
the  peculiarities  of  the  place  and  the  people  acted  on  him,  and 
his  energy  and  determination  reacted  on  them. 

Historically  and  geographically  Delhi  is  the  most  important 
city  in  Hindustan.  Situated  on  the  river  Jumna,  in  the  very 
centre  of  Northern  India,  it  is  brought,  by  the  help  of  the 
Ganges,  into  which  the  Jumna  flows,  and  of  the  vast  network 
of  canals  which  Mogul  and  English  enterprise  have  spread  over 
the  country,  into  direct  communication  with  almost  every  city 
of  note  between  it  and  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  It  stands  on  the 
direct  line  of  advance  into  Northern  and  Central  India  from 
the  passes  of  the  Hindu  Kush  and  the  Suliman  mountains — 
the  only  point  of  the  compass,  it  should  be  remarked,  from 
which  an  invasion  of  India  need  ever  be  seriously  contem- 
plated. Its  inhabitants,  spirited,  energetic,  and  fanatical,  con- 
trast equally  with  the  soft  and  supple  Bengali,  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  ferocious  and  haughty  and  untamable  Afghan  on  the 
other.  Altogether  the  spot  seems  marked  out  by  Nature  her- 
self as  that  whereon,  once  and  again,  the  battle  for  the  Empire 
of  India  would  be  lost  or  won.  Its  history  and  its  traditions 
stretch  right  back  to  the  fifteenth  century  b.c.,  when,  under 
the  name  of  Indra-Prastha,  it  was  deemed  worthy  of  a place  in 
the  Sanscrit  Epic  of  the  ‘ Mahabharata.’  Since  that  time,  on 
the  same,  or  nearly  the  same,  spot,  city  after  city  has  been 
founded,  has  risen  to  opulence  and  power,  or  even  to  empire, 
and  then  has  fallen  by  slow  decay,  or,  as  has  more  often  hap- 
pened, has  been  stamped  out  of  existence  by  the  heel  of  the  de- 
stroyer. The  debris  of  these  cities  of  the  dead  cover  an  area  of 


1829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


35 


forty-five  square  miles,  and  towards  one  end  of  this  vast  space 
rises  the  citv  of  the  living,  the  foundation  of  the  Emperor  Shah 
Jehan. 

Turk  and  Tartar,  Persian  and  Pathan,  Mogul  and  Mahratta, 
have  swept  down  upon  Delhi  in  ghastly  succession,  have  plun- 
dered it  of  its  wealth,  massacred  its  inhabitants,  levelled  its 
buildings  with  the  ground,  or,  again,  have  made  it  the  seat  of  a 
long  dynasty  of  kings,  and  lavished  upon  it  all  the  magnificence 
and  gorgeousness  of  the  East.  There  is  thus  hardly  a great 
name  in  the  history  of  Northern  India  which  is  not  in  some  way 
connected  with  Delhi,  as  founder  or  conqueror,  embellisher  or 
destroyer.  In  the  eleventh  century  Mahmud  the  Iconoclast, 
on  his  return  to  Afghanistan  from  his  frequent  incursions  into 
India,  adorned  his  palace  at  Ghuzni  not  less  with  the  jewels  of 
Delhi  than  with  the  sandal-wood  gates  of  Somnath.  In  the 
twelfth,  Mohammed  of  Ghor  made  it  what,  with  few  intermis- 
sions, it  has  ever  since  remained,  the  capital  of  Mohammedan 
India,  and  planted  upon  its  throne  as  his  vassals  the  famous  dy- 
nasty of  ‘Slave’  kings.  In  the  fourteenth,  Tamerlane,  the 
arch-destroyer,  plundered,  depopulated,  and  destroyed  it.  It 
was  at  Delhi  that  Baber  was  proclaimed  emperor,  and  at  Delhi 
that  Humayun  was  buried.  The  site  of  Delhi,  Shah  Jehan,  the 
master  builder  of  a whole  dynasty  of  builders,  the  architect  of 
those  wonders  of  the  world,  the  Pearl  Mosque  and  the  Taj 
Mehal,  selected  for  the  capital  of  his  Empire,  in  preference 
even  to  that  of  Agra,  and,  rebuilding  the  city  from  the  ground, 
called  it  after  his  own  name  ‘Shah  Jehanabad  ’ (cir.  1656).  In 
the  eighteenth  century  Nadir  Shah,  the  great  Persian  invader, 
treated  its  inhabitants  and  its  movable  wealth  much  as  Tamer- 
lane had  dealt  with  them  before  him,  and  what  little  of  revenue 
or  power  he  left  to  the  great  Mogul  was  afterwards  appropriated 
by  the  Mahrattas.  He  became  a mere  puppet  in  their  hands, 
and  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  (1803)  he  passed 
under  the  gentler  sway  of  that  ‘ company  ’ of  merchants  who 
throve  and  trafficked  and  ruled  in  Leadenhall  Street,  but  could, 
at  their  pleasure,  command  the  services  and  unsheath  the 
swords  of  generals  as  redoubtable  as  Clive  and  Coote,  as  Lake 
and  Wellesley. 

When  Lord  Lake  entered  the  city  of  the  Moguls,  after  his 
surprising  series  of  victories,  he  found  the  venerable  emperor, 
‘oppressed  by  the  accumulated  calamities  of  old  age,  and  de- 
graded authority,  extreme  poverty,  and  loss  of  sight,  seated 


36 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


under  a small  tattered  canopy,  the  remnant  of  his  royal  state.’ 
But  the  English  conquerors,  touched,  as  they  could  not  fail  to 
be,  by  such  a pitiable  sight,  treated  Shah  Alum  with  that  re- 
spectful sympathy  which,  whatever  their  faults,  they  have  seldom 
failed  to  show  to  fallen  greatness.  They  gave  him  back  his 
palace,  one  of  the  most  splendid  creations  of  Shah  Jehan,  and 
set  apart  extensive  districts  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city 
for  the  proper  maintenance  of  him  and  of  his  court.  The 
management  of  these  districts  they  wisely  kept  under  their  own 
control ; but  a lac  of  rupees  (10,000/.) — a sum  which  was  after- 
wards considerably  increased — was  poured  month  by  month 
into  the  lap  of  the  blind  and  helpless  old  man.  Within  his 
palace,  a building  strong  and  vast  enough  to  house  an  army  as 
well  as  a court,  he  was  to  reign  supreme. 

Less  than  this  the  English  could  hardly,  with  any  show  of 
justice  or  generosity,  have  done  ; and  yet  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  even  this  was  not  more  than  the  best  interests  of  the 
venerable  puppet  himself,  or  of  the  miserable  creatures  who 
infested  and  disgraced  the  purlieus  of  his  court,  demanded. 
‘ The  Vatican  and  a garden  ’ was  indeed  the  irreducible  mini- 
mum which  the  discrowned  head  of  the  Catholic  Church  could 
well  have  been  expected  to  accept  from  the  ruler  of  one  of  the 
most  Catholic  of  nations.  But  a palace  and  the  revenues  of  a 
palace  left  to  an  Eastern  king,  who  has  none  of  the  duties  and 
— owing  to  the  protection  guaranteed  to  him  by  a greater  power 
from  without — none  of  the  salutary  fears  of  royalty,  is  likely, 
as  our  dear-bought  experience  in  India  has  proved  again  and 
again,  to  become  a pest-house  doubly  steeped  in  debauchery 
and  corruption.  It  is  a despotism,  tempered  neither  by  epi- 
grams nor  by  assassination. 

But  the  English,  in  their  generosity  to  the  fallen  king,  went 
beyond  even  this.  By  a cruel  kindness,  which  was  more  credit- 
able to  their  hearts  than  their  heads,  they  restored  to  the  de- 
crepit descendant  of  Tamerlane  his  titular  sovereignty  over  the 
whole  of  the  vast  regions  which  had  been  conquered  or  claimed 
by  his  ancestors.  True,  it  was  only  the  shadow  of  empire  that 
they  gave  him  ; but  in  the  East  a shadow,  a remembrance,  a 
symbol,  has  often  proved  to  possess  more  vitality,  and  to  be 
more  real  even  than  the  reality  which  it  was  supposed  to  repre- 
sent. One  or  two  of  our  wiser  statesmen  shook  their  heads, 
and  tried  by  gradual  encroachments  insensibly  to  minimise  the 
imperial  pageantry.  But  their  efforts  were  only  partially  sue- 


1829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


37 


cessful.  The  first  British  Resident,  a kind-hearted  and  gener- 
ous man,  continued  to  approach  this  phantom  of  royalty  with 
knee-worship,  which  the  most  supple  of  courtiers  might  have 
disdained  to  use  in  approaching  a European  sovereign.  Suc- 
cessive Governors-General  or  their  representatives  offered  him 
nuzzurs,  or  presents,  which,  to  the  native  mind  in  general,  and 
certainly  to  that  of  the  old  king  himself,  must  have  suggested 
that  he,  and  not  they,  was  the  paramount  power  in  India.  The 
current  coin  of  the  country  continued  to  bear,  not  indeed  the 
image — for  that  no  good  Muslim  would  allow — but  the  super- 
scription and  year  of  the  reign  of  the  Great  Mogul.  Native 
sovereigns  looked  upon  themselves,  nay  even  upon  the  English 
conquerors,  rather  as  tenants-at-will  than  as  proprietors,  and 
felt  insecure  upon  their  thrones  till  the  fountain  of  sovereignty 
had  recognised  their  claim  to  their  territories  or  their  titles.  And 
so  Resident  succeeded  Resident,  Seton  gave  way  to  Metcalfe, Met- 
calfe to  Ochterlony,  and  then  Ochterlony  to  Metcalfe  again,  at 
the  Residency  house  ; Shah  Alum  was  succeeded  by  Akbar 
Shah  in  the  palace,  and  Bahadur  Shah  expected,  in  due  course, 
to  succeed  Akbar  ; and,  though  some  of  the  more  obnoxious 
obeisances  and  privileges  accorded  to  the  Mogul  were  gradu- 
ally lopped  away,  yet  the  fundamental  mischief  wTent  on  un- 
checked. 

If  it  be  true  that,  during  the  anarchy  which  accompanied  the 
break-up  of  the  Mogul  power,  the  imperial  city  had  become 
the  sink  for  the  rascality  of  all  the  surrounding  countries,  it  is 
equally  true  that  now,  under  the  aegis  of  the  English  protec- 
tion, the  imperial  palace  became  the  sink  of  the  city.  In  the 
city  itself,  and  in  the  adjoining  country',  English  rule  was 
rapidly  introducing  law  and  order  and  security  for  property, 
for  honour,  and  for  life.  But  within  the  walls  of  the  palace, 
though  murder  and  torture  may  have  been  checked  from  fear 
of  the  Resident,  there  was  the  same  dreary  round  of  extrava- 
gance and  profligacy,  jealousy,  and  intrigue;  still  the  same  mis- 
erable inhabitants,  a motley  crowd  of  panders  and  informers, 
concubines  and  eunuchs.  Nor  was  it  possible  for  the  Resident 
to  do  more  than  to  enter  a feeble  protest  against  the  libertinism 
to  which  the  English  Government  itself  had,  with  the  best  in- 
tentions in  the  world,  given  a charter.  If  the  phantom  of  Mogul 
sovereignty  became  every'  day'  more  contemptible,  and  the  torch 
of  the  Mogul  Empire  seemed  to  be  dying  out  with  a last  expir- 
ing flicker,  it  was  not  dead  yet,  and  might  with  that  very  ex- 


38 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


piring  flicker  blaze  forth  into  a conflagration  which  would  en- 
velop the  whole  of  India.  So  thought  one  or  two  of  the  wisest 
of  our  countrymen  then  ; and  so,  wise  after  the  event,  thinks 
everyone  now. 

Such,  then,  were  the  antecedents  and  such  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  imperial  city  when,  early  in  1831,  John  Lawrence 
arrived  as  one  of  the  ‘ assistants  ’ to  the  Resident ; and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  infer  from  what  I have  already  said  how  profound 
an  influence  the  profligacy  of  the  court  and  the  corruption  of 
the  aristocracy  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  patient  sufferings  and 
the  sterling  qualities  of  the  masses  of  the  people  on  the  other, 
must  have  had  upon  the  whole  of  his  subsequent  career — at  a 
time,  that  is,  when  it  would  be  his  no  longer  to  obey  but  to  be 
obeyed,  no  longer  to  observe  but  to  act,  no  longer  to  chafe  at 
abuses  but  to  sweep  them  clean  away. 

The  town  and  district  of  Delhi  had  been,  ever  since  the  time 
of  its  conquest  from  the  Mahrattas  by  Lord  Lake,  under  the 
control  of  a British  officer,  who  bore  the  title  of  ‘ Resident  and 
Chief  Commissioner.’  The  post  was  one  which  demanded  and 
developed  high  qualities,  and  its  varied  duties  were  indicated 
by  the  unusual  title  which  its  occupant  bore.  It  had  twice  been 
filled  by  Charles  Metcalfe,  who,  fortified  by  the  experience 
thence  derived,  was  now  rising,  as  John  Lawrence  was  himself 
to  rise  from  it,  in  later  days,  by  rapid  strides  towards  much 
higher  dignities,  and  was  not  to  die  till  he  had  been,  in  rapid 
succession,  supreme  governor  of  India  itself,  of  Jamaica,  and  of 
Canada. 

The  post  of  Resident  of  Delhi  was,  at  that  time,  held  by 
Thomas  Theophilus  Metcalfe,  a younger  brother  of  Sir  Charles. 
The  work  was  partly  what  is  called  in  India  ‘political,’  partly 
administrative.  The  ‘political’  duties  of  the  Resident  brought 
him  primarily  into  contact  with  the  Mogul  and  his  palace,  but 
they  also  made  his  influence  felt  over  the  vast  range  of  country 
which  lies  between  Malwa  on  the  south-east  and  the  Punjab  on 
the  north-west.  They  thus  embraced  those  numerous  states, 
the  appanages  of  the  oldest  and  proudest  and  most  powerful 
Rajpoot  chiefs,  which,  together  with  intervening  tracts  of  desert, 
make  up  the  district  called  by  a geographical  fiction,  as  if  it 
were  a united  whole,  Rajpootana.  They  included  also  the 
* protected  Sikh  states’  of  Jhcend,  Puttiala,  Khytul,  and  Nabha, 
which,  with  numerous  smaller  chieftainships,  were  interlaced 
in  a perplexing  manner  with  the  British  territory. 


iS’9-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


39 


In  his  civil  capacity  as  ‘Commissioner’  in  the  purely  British 
territory,  the  Resident  had  to  keep  order,  to  administer  justice, 
to  superintend  the  apportionment  and  collection  of  the  revenue, 
and  to  develop,  as  far  as  practicable,  the  resources  of  a very  im- 
perfectly developed  country.  His  assistants,  who  were  four  or 
five  in  number,  usually  lived  like  the  members  of  one  family, 
in  the  Residency  house  or  compound,  and  after  they  had 
served  their  first  apprenticeship  were  liable  to  be  employed  in 
any  of  the  various  duties  which  belonged  to  the  Resident  him- 
self. They  thus  managed  at  a very  early  stage  of  their  career 
to  combine  the  functions  of  magistrate,  collector,  and  judge. 

The  Delhi  district,  happily  for  all  concerned,  was  a non- 
regulation province.  In  spite  of  successive  waves  of  foreign 
conquest  which  had  swept  over  it,  the  native  institutions  had 
been  less  changed  here  than  in  almost  any  other  part  of  India. 
The  venerable  village  communities  remained  intact,  and  the  cue 
of  the  English  officers  was,  happily,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  pre- 
serve and  make  the  best  of  them.  That  ‘mystery  of  iniquity,’ 
as  it  has  been  well  called  by  Sir  John  Kaye,  the  law  of  sales 
for  arrears  of  rent,  had  not  been  introduced  into  the  Delhi  ter- 
ritory, and  justice  was  administered  not  so  much  by  hard  and 
fast  regulations,  as  on  principles  of  natural  equity.  It  is  thus 
not  too  much  to  say  that  every  ‘ assistant  ’ to  the  Resident, 
owing  to  the  variety  of  his  work,  the  liberty  he  was  allowed,  and 
the  sense  of  responsibility  which  was  thus  developed,  enjoyed 
almost  unique  facilities  for  showing  what  was  in  him. 

Among  the  ‘assistants’  in  1831  was  Charles  Trevelyan,  who 
by  his  energy,  his  ability,  and  his  fearlessness,  had  already,  in 
his  subordinate  capacity,  made  a great  narpe.  Amidst  all  but 
universal  obloquy,  he  had  struck  boldly  at  corruption  in  high 
places,  and  at  last,  amidst  all  but  universal  appreciation,  he  had 
levelled  it  with  the  ground,  never  again,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  to 
rear  its  head.  He  found  a kindred  spirit  in  the  newly  arrived 
John  Lawrence,  whom  he  had  himself  been  instrumental  in  at- 
tracting thither  ; and  thus  began  a friendship  which  lasted  with- 
out intermission  for  nearly  fifty  years,  till  death  ended  or  put 
the  seal  to  it.  The  two  friends  did  not  remain  long  together 
now,  for  Trevelyan  was  called  off  in  the  following  year  to 
Bhurtpore,  while  John  Lawrence  remained  behind  in  the  city 
with  which  so  much  of  his  career  was  to  be  bound  up. 

The  impression,  however,  made  by  the  younger  man,  who 
had  not  yet  done  a stroke  of  professional  work  in  India,  upon 


40 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


the  elder,  was  distinct  enough,  and  has,  after  the  lapse  of  some 
fifty  years,  in  conversation  with  myself,  been  thus  vividly  re- 
called * ‘When  I first  saw  John  Lawrence  he  was  in  appear- 
ance singularly  like  what  he  was  in  advanced  life  ; nay,  he 
looked  in  a manner  older  than  in  after  life  : the  lines  in  his 
face  were  even  deeper.  He  had  a hungry,  anxious  look.  He 
seemed  to  be  of  a mercurial  disposition.  I do  not  mean  that 
he  had  instability  or  the  faults  of  the  Irish  character,  but  he 
was  earnest  and  restless.  For  example,  he  was  very  fond  of 
riding,  and  he  always  appeared  to  be  riding  at  a hand  gallop. 
Here  was  the  foundation  for  a man  of  action.  I did  not  seek 
for  or  detect  any  signs  of  what  is  ordinarily  called  “superi- 
ority ” or  greatness  then,  but,  looking  back  now,  I can  see  that 
what  I did  notice  was  capable  of  a much  higher  interpretation 
than  I put  upon  it.’ 

John  Lawrence’s  first  appointment  under  the  Resident  was 
that  of  ‘assistant  judge,  magistrate,  and  collector’  of  the  city 
and  its  environs — over  an  area,  that  is,  of  some  800  square 
miles,  and  a population  of  about  500,000  souls.  Of  this  total 
the  city  itself  contained  some  200,000,  and  with  their  narrow 
round  of  interests  and  occupations,  and  their  petty  crimes  and 
quarrels,  the  work  of  the  assistant  magistrate  would  be  princi- 
pally concerned.  The  city  population  consisted  of  many  dif- 
ferent elements.  The  capital  of  Mohammedan  India  of  course 
contained  a large  number  of  Indian  Mohammedans,  but  the 
larger  portion  was  composed  of  Hindus,  with  an  admixture  of 
Sikhs  and  Afghans. 

The  general  insecurity  of  life  and  property  at  Delhi  during 
the  break  up  of  the  Mogul  and  the  rise  of  the  Mahratta  power, 
had  drawn  thither,  by  a natural  process  of  agglomeration,  most 
of  the  stormy  spirits  of  Northern  and  Central  India.  The 
criminal  class  in  such  a population  would  necessarily  be  large, 
and  it  was  not  unfrequently  recruited  by  a reinforcement  of 
arch  criminals  from  the  sanctuary  of  the  palace.  Within  that 
sanctuary  the  English  magistrates  were  powerless.  Slavery, 
polygamy,  and  concubinage — those  inseparable  adjuncts  of 
Oriental  despotism — reigned  unmolested.  The  Sullateen,  or 
princes  of  the  blood,  ‘men  who  feared  neither  God  nor  man, 
and  whom  no  one  outside  the  palace  would  trust  for  a rupee,’ 
revelled  within  it  in  extravagance  and  lust  and  infamy  of  every 
description.  Sometimes  a pair  of  half-naked  slave  girls,  with 
the  marks  of  stripes  upon  their  backs,  would  escape  from  the 


1829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


41 


windows  of  their  gilded  prison-house,  and  the  Resident  or  his 
assistants  would  have  the  satisfaction  of  declaring  to  the  pursu- 
ing myrmidons  of  the  palace,  that  having  once  touched  British 
soil,  they  were  free.  Within/he  palace  all  the  offices  and  all 
the  etiquette  of  the  old  Mogul  court  were  still  scrupulously 
preserved.  Sometimes  one  of  these  dignitaries,  forgetful  even 
of  the  honour  that  reigns  among  thieves,  would  turn  his  sharp 
practices  upon  his  brother  ministers.  On  other  occasions — as 
in  an  incident  related  to  me  by  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan — they 
ventured  to  use  the  ill-gotten  experience  and  facilities  for 
crime  acquired  within  the  palace  in  the  more  extended  field  of 
the  city.  The  titular  Lord  Chancellor,  or  his  equivalent,  had 
set  up,  outside  the  palace,  a regular  factory  for  forging  deeds. 
It  was  an  easy  task,  for  he  possessed,  in  virtue  of  his  office,  the 
entire  series  of  seals  belonging  to  the  former  Emperors  and 
their  chief  officers.  The  existence  of  this  factory  was  perfectly 
well  known  in  the  city,  and  even  respectable  men,  when  they 
found  that  the  titles  to  their  land  were  disputed,  resorted  to  it 
to  get  them  set  right  by  forgery.  One  day  a vakil  of  the  Raja 
of  Bullubghur  reported  at  the  residency  that  the  ex-Chancellor 
was  at  that  moment  forging  the  grant  of  a village  in  his  mas- 
ter’s territory.  The  kotwal  was  sent  with  a posse  comitatus  to 
the  place,  and  found  the  operation  actually  going  on,  and  the 
ex-Chancellor,  who  had  in  his  possession  at  least  a hundred 
seals  of  former  Hakims  of  Delhi,  was  condemned  to  five  years’ 
labour  on  the  public  roads. 

The  capture  of  Delhi  by  the  mutineers,  twenty-six  years 
later,  has  been  to  the  history  of  the  Delhi  district,  on  a small 
scale,  what  the  burning  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls  was  to  the 
whole  course  of  Roman  history.  Nearly  all  the  contemporary 
records  of  the  times  of  which  I am  writing  perished  in  the 
flames  ; but  even  in  the  absence  of  these,  as  well  as  of  all  pri- 
vate letters,  knowing  as  we  do  how  John  Lawrence  felt  and 
acted  in  after  times,  we  can  easily  imagine  the  zest  with  which 
he  would  have  flung  himself  into  adventures  of  the  knight- 
errant  kind  when  they  came  in  his  way — his  rescue  of  a slave 
girl  from  her  tormentors,  or  the  arrest  and  punishment  of  a 
scoundrel  born  in  the  purple,  the  moment  that  he  dared  to 
carry  his  malpractices  beyond  the  charmed  circle  of  the  palace 
walls/ 

But  the  occupations  of  the  assistant  magistrate  were  not  all 
of  this  exciting  character,  nor  was  his  intercourse  confined  to 


42 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1829-34 


the  criminal  classes.  ‘ In  those  days,’  says  John  Lawrence, 
‘ many  of  the  chiefs  about  Delhi  still  held  houses  and  gardens 
in  the  city,  to  which  they  constantly  resorted,  partly  to  pay 
their  respects  to  the  representative  of  British  power,  and  partly 
to  enjoy  the  pleasures  and  luxuries  of  social  life.  There  were 
then  living  also  in  Delhi  old  men  of  rank  and  family,  who  had 
served  in  one  capacity  or  other  in  the  late  wars  ; men  who  had 
been  employed  in  the  irregular  fashion  under  Sir  Arthur  Wel- 
lesley or  Lord  Lake,  men  who  used  to  be  fond  of  telling  stories 
of  those  interesting  times,  and  to  whom  the  names  of  Mr. 
Seton,  the  first  Resident,  of  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe,  of  Sir  David 
Ochterlony,  and  of  Sir  John  Malcolm  were  as  household  words.’ 
Storytellers  such  as  these  found  an  excellent  listener  in  John 
Lawrence,  who,  a still  better  storyteller  himself,  doubtless  often 
retaliated  in  kind  ; and  thus,  in  his  very  first  post,  gathered  an 
amount  of  experience  such  as,  in  other  parts  of  India,  could 
only  have  been  acquired  very  gradually.  He  thus  came  to 
know  the  family  histories  of  the  chiefs,  their  feelings  and  their 
wishes,  their  merits  and  their  faults — a knowledge  which  after- 
wards stood  him  in  excellent  stead  when  he  had  to  deal  on  a 
wider  scale,  as  responsible  ruler,  with  dispossessed  or  discon- 
tented Sikh  chieftains  scattered  over  a newly  conquered  pro- 
vince. 

John  Lawrence  remained  at  Delhi  for  nearly  four  years, 
1 working  regularly  and  steadily  without  any  change  or  inter- 
mission.’ Once  indeed  he  joined  a hog-hunting  expedition 
given  by  Trevelyan  on  an  extensive  scale  in  some  large  tama- 
risk jungles  on  the  banks  of  the  Jumna  ; and  once  or  twice  he 
paid  hasty  visits  to  his  brother  George,  who  was  then  enter- 
taining, at  his  house  at  Kurnal,  Henry  Lawrence  and  the  sister 
(Honoria)  who  had  come  out  to  India  with  them.  On  March 
6,  1831,  Henry  had  written  from  Kurnal  to  his  sister  Letitia  at 
home,  ‘ You  may  imagine  how  glad  we  are  that  John  has  got 
himself  appointed  to  Delhi.  He  is  now  within  a few  hours  of 
us  and  in  very  good  hands  ; on  my  return  to  Kurnal  at  the  end 
of  the  month  he  will  come  over.’  And  it  is  pleasant  to  read  in 
a letter  written  to  me,  and  dated  ‘ February  18,  1880,  Brighton,’ 
from  Honoria  (now  Mrs.  Barton),  the  sister  concerned,  how 
these  anticipations  of  the  family  were  fulfilled  : ‘ During  the 
fifteen  months  that  we  lived  with  our  brother  George  at  Kurnal, 
John  occasionally  visited  us,  and  made  us  very  happy.  He 
seemed  quite  satisfied  with  his  position  at  Delhi,  and  liked  his 


1 829-34 


LIFE  AT  DELHI. 


43 


work,  and  we  knew  that  he  had  warm  friends  in  the  Commis- 
sioner and  his  family.’  It  may  be  mentioned  that,  much  as  he 
liked  the  Commissioner,  he  did  not,  as  the  other  ‘ assistants  ’ 
usually  did,  live  in  the  Residency  compound,  but  in  a separate 
house,  a mile  and  a-half  off,  with  a chaplain  of  the  name  of 
Everest,  with  whom  he  had  struck  up  a friendship.  Nor  is  it 
without  interest  to  remark  that  among  the  young  Englishmen 
then  to  be  found  at  Delhi  was  Robert  Napier,  who  at  that  very 
time  was  engaged,  at  the  head  of  a body  of  sappers,  in  strength- 
ening the  fortifications  which,  twenty-seven  years  later,  were  so 
long  to  bid  defiance  to  the  forces  which  John  Lawrence  was  to 
keep  hurrying  thither  from  his  distant  province. 


CHAPTER  III. 


LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT.  1S34— 1837. 

At  the  end  of  his  four  years’  apprenticeship  in  the  city  of  Del- 
hi, John  Lawrence  was  transferred  to  a ‘district’  and  placed  in 
charge  of  the  northern  division  of  the  Delhi  territory.  Its  chief 
station  was  Paniput,  at  a distance  of  some  twenty  miles  from 
which  there  lay  the  important  military  cantonment  of  Kurnal. 
But  the  Paniput  district  needed  no  cantonment  to  keep  alive 
the  martial  spirit,  or  to  awake  the  military  associations,  which 
are  inseparably  connected  with  its  history  : for  what  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon  has  been  to  Jewish,  and  the  carse  of  Stirling  to 
Scottish,  history  ; what  Belgium  has  in  later  times  been  to  the 
history  of  the  whole  of  Europe  ; — that  the  Paniput  district  is  to 
the  history  of  the  Indian  Peninsula.  It  is,  in  short,  the  battle- 
field of  India. 

Not  to  speak  of  less  important  combats  and  campaigns  in- 
numerable, three  times  over  the  fate  of  the  whole  peninsula  has 
been  decided  within  its  boundaries.  It  was  here,  in  1556,  that 
Akbar,  the  greatest  of  the  Moguls — then  a stripling  of  thirteen 
years  old — after  performing,  according  to  the  story,  prodigies 
of  personal  valour,  which  we  may  believe  or  not,  succeeded,  as 
we  must  believe,  under  the  guidance  of  the  able  general,  Bell- 
ram  Khan,  who  nominally  served  under  him,  in  winning  back 
for  his  father,  Humayun,  the  empire  which  he  had  lost.  It  was 
here  in  1739  that  the  upstart  Nadir  Shah,  the  greatest  warrior 
whom  modern  Persia  has  produced,  after  raising  himself  to  the 
Persian  throne,  and  beating  back  the  Turks  and  Russians  to  the 
west  and  north,  and  taking  Herat  and  Candahar,  Ghuzni  and 
Cabul,  to  the  east  and  south,  shattered  the  forces  of  the  Mogul 
Mohammed  Shah,  and  carried  off  the  spoils  of  Delhi  as  his  prize. 
And  it  was  here,  once  more,  in  1761  that  Ahmed  Shah,  Dourani, 
after  repeatedly  invading  India  through  the  Khyber  Pass,  finally 
defeated  the  Mahratta  hosts,  and,  after  incredible  slaughter, 
drove  their  remnant  headlong  southward  over  the  Nerbudda, 


1S34-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


45 


deprived  for  the  time  of  all  their  northern  conquests.  Had  it 
not  been  for  this  crowning  victory,  the  Mahrattas  must  have 
overrun  and  conquered  all  Upper  India  thirty  years  and  more 
before  the  Wellesleys  came  to  stop  them. 

Influenced,  it  may  be,  by  these  historical  traditions,  the 
people  of  the  Paniput  district  bore  a character  for  turbulence 
and  disaffection  beyond  that  of  any  of  the  adjoining  districts; 
and,  if  the  city  of  Delhi  had  given  John  Lawrence  an  insight, 
which  he  could  hardly  have  obtained  elsewhere,  into  the  con- 
dition of  all  classes  of  a city  population,  as  well  as  of  the  older 
aristocracy,  it  is  equally  certain  that  few  districts  could  have 
given  him  so  thorough  an  acquaintance  with  the  wants  and 
habits  of  the  best  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  India,  its  agricul- 
tural population  and — what  is  more  material  to  note  here — 
with,  perhaps,  the  very  best  section  of  that  best  part,  the  widely 
spread  race  of  Jats. 

Let  us  then,  as  in  the  case  of  the  city  of  Delhi  itself,  and  for 
the  same  reasons,  dwell  for  a moment  on  the  history  and  lead- 
ing characteristics  of  the  race  which,  under  various  designa- 
tions, occupies  by  far  the  larger  part  of  the  country  in  which 
John  Lawrence’s  active  life  is  henceforward  to  be  passed. 

The  Jats  are  said  by  Tod,  the  historian  of  Rajpootana,  to  be 
descended  from  the  ancient  Getae,  or  Scythians.  The  apparent 
similarity  of  name,  no  doubt,  suggested  the  precise  Scythian 
tribe  to  which  he  assigns  their  origin  ; but  their  handsome, 
prominent  features  and  their  tall,  bony  frames  clearly  proclaim 
their  northern  birth.  They  are  to  be  found  scattered  over 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  country  between  the  Jhelum  and  the 
Jumna,  and  extend  southward  even  to  Bhurtpore  and  Agra. 
Like  other  hordes  of  northern  invaders,  which,  from  the  time 
of  Darius  and  Xerxes  downwards,  have  poured  into  India  from 
the  wilds  of  Central  Asia,  they  were,  in  their  turn,  conquered 
and  absorbed  by  the  compact  and  complex  civilisation  of 
the  country  which  they  overran,  and  they  thus  became  almost 
as  BrahminicaL  in  their  belief  and  institutions  as  the  Hindus 
themselves.  Indeed,  the  same  process  was  then  going  on  in 
India  which  was  repeated  on  a larger  scale  in  Europe  in  the 
fourth  and  following  centuries  after  Christ,  and  it  was  attended 
with  like  results.  The  successive  hordes  of  Ostrogoths  and 
Visigoths,  of  Vandals  and  Franks,  of  Bulgarians  and  Slavonians, 
who  overran  the  decaying  fabric  of  the  Roman  Empire,  were 
themselves  taken  captive  by  the  nascent  Christianity  and  by  the 


46 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


majestic  system  of  law  which  are  its  most  fruitful  and  enduring 
legacies  to  the  Western  world.  But  the  stereotyped  religion  of 
the  Hindus  could  not  satisfy  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  Jats,  in 
the  way  in  which  Christianity  with  its  few  rules  and  its  all-em- 
bracing principles,  its  boundless  power  of  development,  and  its 
adaptability  to  the  most  diverse  conditions  of  time  and  place, 
was  able  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  progressive  nations  of  the 
West.  And  the  Jats  have,  to  an  extent  which  is  very  remark- 
able in  an  Oriental  people,  been  able  to  appreciate  and  assimi- 
late one  elevated  creed  after  another,  as  they  have,  successively, 
been  presented  to  them. 

At  one  time  the  new  impulse  came  in  the  shape  of  that  great 
religious  and  social  movement  which,  starting  in  the  breast  of 
an  unlettered  shepherd  of  Mecca,  was  carried  by  the  half-naked 
Arabs  and  by  those  whom  they  conquered  and  inspired,  amidst 
the  crumbling  of  all  older  thrones  and  creeds,  in  one  sweep  of 
unbroken  conquest  from  Gibraltar  to  Delhi.  At  another  time, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  religion  preached  by  the  pious  and  gentle 
prophet  Nanuk,  it  came  in  the  shape  of  a peaceful  internal  re- 
formation. In  this  way  many  of  the  Jats,  especially  those  along 
the  southern  Indus,  became  fervent  Muslims,  while  others,  sev- 
eral centuries  later,  especially  those  in  the  central  districts 
about  Lahore  and  Umritsur,  became  equally  fervent  Sikhs — 
‘ disciples,’  that  is,  of  Nanuk,  and  of  the  Gurus  or  religious 
leaders  of  whom  he  was  the  spiritual  progenitor. 

Strange,  at  first  sight,  that  the  same  people  should  be  able  to 
embrace  with  equal  enthusiasm  creeds  so  different  as  those  of 
Mohammed  and  of  Nanuk  ! And  strange,  also,  that  the  hatred 
between  the  votaries  of  each  shoidd  be  so  intense  that  J.ohn 
Lawrence  could  afford  in  the  crisis  of  our  fate  to  put  arms 
freely  into  the  hands  of  one  of  these  sections,  in  full  confidence 
that  they  would  use  them,  not  against  their  common  masters 
but  against  their  own  brethren  ! But  it  will  be  discovered  on 
a closer  investigation  that  the  fundamental  principles  of  both 
religions  were  the  same.  Both  were  based  on  an  antagonism 
to  idolatry,  and  both  proclaimed  as  their  leading  doctrines  the 
Unity  of  God  and  the  equality  of  man.  And  it  is  a melancholy 
fact  of  human  nature,  as  observable  in  the  East  as  in  the  West, 
that  they  who  differ  least  on  religious  questions  generally  hate 
the  most.  Whether  an  Eastern  race,  which  has  proved  itself  so 
singularly  plastic  in  religious  matters  as  to  adopt  successively 
three  such  religions  as  the  Hindu,  the  Mohammedan,  and  the 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 


47 


Sikh,  will  be  capable  of  a yet  further  step  in  advance,  and  be 
ready,  when  it  is  properly  presented  to  them,  to  embrace  Chris- 
tianity, is  a question  which  is  equally  interesting  in  an  ethno- 
logical and  religious  point  of  view. 

As  far  south  as  Kurnal  all  the  Jats  adopted  the  name  and 
creed  of  Sikhs,  but  those  beyond  are  still  Hindus  in  creed  and 
retain  their  original  name.  The  Sikh  religion  was,  at  first, 
merely  a reformed  Hinduism.  But  in  process  of  time  it  became 
much  more,  and  may  be  described  rather  as  ‘ the  military 
and  political  spirit  superadded  to  a reformed  religion.’  The 
Sikhs  are  equally  well  known  as  excellent  and  thrifty  cultiva- 
tors of  the  soil  and  as  hardy  and  formidable  soldiers.  Their 
feelings,  social  and  political,  are  highly  democratic  ; and  though 
they  rally  round  the  leaders  of  their  race,  it  is  in  the  free  spirit 
of  associates  rather  than  of  servants.  Those  Jats  who  have  not 
adopted  the  new  religion  are  quite  as  fearless  and  industrious, 
but  are  more  peacefully  inclined,  than  their  Sikh  brethren. 
They  know  how  to  defend  their  rights,  should  any  one  be  ven- 
turesome enough  to  attack  them,  with  the  most  effectual  of  ar- 
guments ; and  the  only  real  obstacle  to  our  conquests  in  the 
north  of  India  in  the  beginning  of  this  century  came  from  them. 
It  was  the  great  Jat  chiefship  of  Bhurtpore,  for  instance,  which 
rolled  back  for  a time  the  victorious  career  of  Lord  Lake. 

Such,  then,  was  the  race,  thrifty,  industrious,  independent, 
stoutly  attached  to  their  village  communities  and  their  ances- 
tral acres — with  which  John  Lawrence  had  now  to  deal  in  his 
new  appointment  as  collector-magistrate  of  the  Paniput  district. 
How  did  he  deal  with  them  ? 

I shall  presently  quote  the  testimony,  as  vigorous  as  it  is  dis- 
criminating, of  the  only  Englishman  who  can  speak  with  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  John  Lawrence’s  work  at  Paniput.  But 
first  let  us  inquire  in  more  general  terms  what  the  duties  of  a 
collector-magistrate  are  or  were  : I say  were,  for  many  changes 
have  taken  place  since  John  Lawrence’s  time,  and  it  has,  I be- 
lieve, been  found  necessary  to  carry  out  one  change  in  particu- 
lar which  he  always  strongly  deprecated — the  separation  of  the 
judicial  functions  from  those  of  the  collector  of  revenue. 
Thousands  of  educated  Englishmen  who  appreciate  Lord  Law- 
rence warmly,  and  regard  him  as  one  of  those  national  heroes 
of  whom  England  may  justly  be  most  proud,  yet  have  a very 
inadequate  notion  of  the  long  and  painful  period  of  self-disci- 
pline and  probation  which  prepared  the  way  for  his  success. 


48 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


They  know  little  of  the  labours,  multifarious  and  yet  monoto- 
nous, exhausting  yet  also  refreshing  ; of  that  union  of  a liberty 
which  is  practically  unfettered  with  a responsibility  the  most 
real,  which  go  to  form  the  characters  and  shape  the  careers  of 
Englishmen  in  India,  and  which  have  produced,  in  spite  of 
many  mistakes  and  shortcomings,  a succession  of  statesman- 
soldiers,  and  soldier-statesmen,  such  as  no  imperial  state  has 
before  produced,  and  in  the  long  roll  of  whom  there  are  few 
names  equal,  and  not  one  superior,  to  that  of  John  Lawrence. 

A ‘district’  usually  contains  a population  of  several  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  who  are  spread  over  several  thousand 
square  miles  of  territory  and  are  distributed  among  many  hun- 
dreds of  villages  and  townships.  Over  this  vast  area  and  these 
multitudinous  interests  the  ‘collector,’  sometimes  with  a small 
staff  of  European  assistants,  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  John 
Lawrence  at  Paniput,  singlehanded,  rules  as  a kind  of  terres- 
trial providence.  His  primary  duty,  as  his  name  implies,  is  the 
collection  of  the  revenue  or  land-tax  on  the  punctual  payment 
of  which  the  solvency  of  the  Indian  Government  depends,  while 
on  the  care  with  which  it  was  originally  assessed,  on  its  moder- 
ate and  fixed  amount,  and  on  the  leniency  with  which,  in  times 
of  exceptional  distress,  its  payment  is  enforced,  depends  in 
great  measure  that  for  which  alone  it  is  to  be  hoped  our  Indian 
Empire  exists — the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  its  inhabitants. 

In  provinces  which  have  been  long  settled,  the  collection  of 
the  revenue  is,  except  where  the  powers  of  nature  have  been 
more  than  ordinarily  unkind,  a work  of  no  great  difficulty.  In 
fact,  owing  to  the  admirable  village  system  which,  in  the  North- 
West  Provinces  and  in  the  Punjab,  the  most  ardent  of  our  re- 
formers have  happily  been  content  to  leave  unreformed,  it  may 
almost  be  said  to  collect  itself.  Tax-gatherers  in  England  may 
be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  taxes  in  these  provinces  often 
possess  the  peculiarity  of  being  paid  before  they  are  asked  for. 
But  the  collector  of  revenue  is,  or  rather  perhaps  was,  also  a 
magistrate,  and  is  responsible  for  the  administration  of  justice 
throughout  his  district.  Every  criminal,  from  adacoit  or  a 
thug  down  to  the  petty  thief,  is  brought  before  him.  lie  is  ex- 
pected to  redress  every  grievance,  from  a murrain  among  the 
flocks  or  a scourge  of  locusts  among  the  crops,  down  to  ‘a  claim 
to  a waterspout  in  the  bazaar  ’or  an  opprobrious  epithet.  For 
many  hours  every  day  while  the  rain  is  descending  in  cata- 
clysms and  turning  the  world  into  a vapour-bath,  or  again,  while 


49 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 

the  sun  is  scorching  it  like  a furnace  and  baking  it  till  it  is  hard 
as  iron,  he  sits  patiently  on  his  stifling  cutcherry,  listening,  re- 
proving, advising,  consoling,  condemning. 

Quicquid  agunt  homines,  votum,  timor,  ira,  voluptas, 

Gaudia,  discursus,  nostri  est  farrago  libelli. 

The  collector  has  to  keep  his  eye  upon  the  police,  well  know- 
ing that  they  will  work  effectively  if  that  eye,  or  one  of  the 
thousand  Argus  eyes  which  he  requires,  be  upon  them  : with- 
out it  they  will  do  nothing,  or  worse  than  nothing.  ‘ Every- 
thing,’ says  R.  H.  Cust,  in  an  excellent  article  on  the  subject 
in  the  ‘ Calcutta  Review,’  ‘ which  is  done  by  the  executive  gov- 
ernment is  done  by  the  collector  in  one  or  other  of  his  capaci- 
ties— publican,  auctioneer,  sheriff,  road-maker,  timber-dealer, 
recruiting-sergeant,  slayer  of  wild  beasts,  bookseller,  cattle- 
breeder,  postmaster,  vaccinator,  discounter  of  bills,  and  regis- 
trar.’ New  tanks  to  be  constructed  ; rivers  to  be  bridged,  to  be 
turned  into  new  courses  or  back  into  their  old  ones  ; new  roads 
to  be  made  ; new  dispensaries,  hospitals,  schools,  or  jails  to  be 
built  ; lands  to  be  cleared  or  drained  ; primaeval  forests  to  be 
felled  or  new  ones  to  be  planted  ; new  crops  or  new  methods 
of  cultivation  to  be  introduced  ; — all  these  come  within  the  col- 
lector’s legitimate  and  ordinary  functions.  Who  is  sufficient,  it 
may  well  be  asked,  for  these  things  ? No  one  is  altogether 
sufficient ; but  it  is  simply  surprising,  thanks  to  the  energy,  the 
sagacity,  the  punctuality,  the  strong  love  of  justice,  and  the 
careful  and  loving  study  of  the  native  character  which  so  many 
of  our  administrators  in  the  latter  days  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany possessed,  how  few  of  them  fell  conspicuously  short  of 
such  success  as  is  attainable  by  poor  human  nature. 

But  the  most  important  duties  of  the  collector-magistrate  are 
not  discharged  in  the  stifling  cutcherry  at  the  central  station, 
but  rather  in  that  ‘cutcherry  on  horseback,’  or  under  the  easily 
shifted  tent,  which  forms  his  locomotive  home  during  some  five 
months  in  the  year.  Whenever  the  season  is  favourable — when- 
ever, that  is,  the  deluges  of  rain  or  the  overpowering  heat  allow 
him  to  do  so — he  makes  a progress  through  his  dominions, 
which  is  only  not  a royal  progress  because  it  is  something  more, 
pitching  his  tent,  now  here,  now  there,  as  best  suits  the  pur- 
poses of  his  work.  The  people  have  now  no  longer  to  go  to  see 
him,  but,  what  is  much  better,  he  goes  to  see  them.  He  rides 
about  redressing  human  wrongs.  Divested  of  all  state,  and 
Vol.  I. — 4 


50 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


often  quite  alone,  he  visits  each  village  contained  in  his  cure  of 
souls,  takes  his  seat  under  some  immemorial  tree  or  beside  the 
village  well,  where  the  village  elders  soon  cluster  around  him. 
He  talks  to  them,  listens  to  their  stories  and  their  grievances,  dis- 
cusses the  weather  and  the  crops,  and  settles  on  the  spot  itself 
— sometimes  by  a mere  word,  sometimes  by  a long  investigation 
of  many  days  together — some  outstanding  boundary  dispute 
which  has  been  the  cause  of  heart-burnings  and  head-breakings 
for  many  generations.  He  thus  gets  to  know  the  people  and  to 
be  known  of  them.  He  makes  allowance  for  their  many  faults 
— the  growth  of  centuries  of  oppression  by  foreign  or  domestic 
tyrants  ; he  appreciates  their  simple  virtues,  and  is  rewarded  in 
his  turn — a reward  not  often  given  to  an  Englishman  when  he 
has  risen  to  a higher  grade — by  their  gratitude,  their  respect, 
and  their  affection.  Often,  indeed,  when  a magistrate  has  risen 
to  the  top  of  the  tree,  and  is  the  victim  of  the  scandal  and  the 
envy,  the  ingratitude  and  the  self-seeking,  the  etiquette  and  the 
officialism  which  haunt  the  antechambers  of  the  great,  and  finds 
that  he  is  in  that  worst  of  solitudes,  alone  amidst  a crowd,  must 
he  look  regretfully  back  upon  the  simpler  life,  the  purer  motives, 
and  the  more  satisfying  rewards  which  were  his  once  happy 
lot. 

And  now  let  us  hear  what  Charles  Raikes,  the  author  of  one  of 
the  best  books  on  this  and  kindred  subjects,1  and,  like  Charles 
Trevelyan,  another  lifelong  friend  of  John  Lawrence,  writes 
from  his  personal  recollection  about  the  duties  which  the  Pani- 
put  district  required,  and  of  the  way  in  which  John  Lawrence 
discharged  them. 

Early  in  the  year  1835  John  Lawrence  was  stationed  at  the  ancient 
and  historically  famous  town  of  Paniput.  He  was  * officiating’  as  magis- 
trate and  collector  of  the  district.  He  had  also  to  conduct  a settlement 
and  survey  pf  the  lands  comprised  in  his  district.  Let  us  glance  for  a 
moment  at  the  details  of  the  sort  of  work  and  duty  confided  to  this  young 
Irishman.  Paniput  is  situated  on  the  high  road  from  Delhi  to  the  Pun- 
jab, about  seventy  miles  northwest  of  Delhi.  The  district  is  inhabited  by 
Jats,  industrious  Hindu  peasants,  devoted  to  agriculture,  and  attached 
by  the  strongest  ties  to  the  land  ; by  Goojurs,  who  were  given  to  cattle- 
lifting; and  by  Ranghurs  (Rajpoots  converted  to  a nominal  form  of 
Mohammedanism),  who  were  as  jealous  of  their  land  as  the  Jats,  still 
worse  thieves  than  the  Goojurs,  with  a taste  for  promiscuous  robbery 
and  murder  into  the  bargain.  These  men,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  are 


* Notes  on  the  North-  West  Provinces  of  India. 


>834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PAN1PUT.  5 1 

not  at  all  like  the  typical  ‘meek  Hindu,’  but  on  the  contrary  are  tall, 
strong,  bold  fellows,  determined  and  ready  to  fight  for  every  inch  of 
their  land  and  every  head  of  their  cattle.  In  those  days  they  never  went 
out  to  plough  or  to  herd  their  buffaloes  without  sword,  shield,  and  often 
a long  matchlock  over  their  shoulders. 

Over  some  400,000  of  a population  like  this,  scattered  in  large  villages 
through  an  area  of  800,000  acres,  John  Lawrence  ruled  supreme.  He 
himself  in  those  days  had  very  much  the  cut  of  a Jat,  being  wiry,  tall, 
muscular,  rather  dark  in  complexion,  and  without  an  ounce  of  super- 
fluous fat  or  flesh.  He  usually  wore  a sort  of  compromise  between  Eng- 
lish and  Indian  costume,  had  his  arms  ready  at  hand,  and  led  a life  as 
primus  inter  pares , rather  than  a foreigner  or  a despot,  among  the 
people.  Yet  a despot  he  was,  as  any  man  soon  discovered  who  was  bold 
enough  or  silly  enough  to  question  his  legitimate  authority — a despot, 
but  full  of  kindly  feelings,  and  devoted  heart  and  soul  to  duty  and  hard 
work. 

As  magistrate  he  had  charge  of  the  police — a handful  of  sowars,  or 
troopers,  mounted  on  country  horses  and  armed  with  sword  and  pistol, 
and  mostly  retained  at  headquarters,  and  the  ordinary  constabulary 
force  stationed  at  the  various  thanahs,  or  police-stations,  dotted  over  the 
district.  Each  of  these  stations  was  under  the  charge  of  a thanadar,  or 
chief  of  police,  with  a jemadar,  or  sergeant,  a mohurrir,  or  scribe,  and  a 
dozen  or  so  of  police  burkundazes  (literally  ‘ hurler  of  fire’),  who,  armed 
with  sword  or  lance,  formed  the  rank  and  file  of  the  force.  But  these 
were  supplemented  by  a nondescript  but  very  useful  village  official,  a 
choukedar,  whose  duty  was  that  of  a watchman  or  parish  constable,  and 
a reporter  (to  the  thanadar)  of  all  crimes,  sudden  deaths,  or  other  note- 
worthy events  which  happened  in  his  village.  This  was  the  framework 
of  the  district  police,  little  changed  from  the  system  which  had  prevailed 
for  centuries  under  the  Emperors  of  Delhi.  It  was  a system  suffi- 
ciently efficacious  to  protect  the  public  under  a just  and  energetic  ma- 
gistrate, and  an  apt  engine  of  oppression  under  a venal  or,  above  all, 
under  a careless  and  slothful  official.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  John  Law- 
rence at  Paniput  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  and  for  the  fol- 
lowing reasons. 

First,  he  was  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  even  in  his  bedroom,  ac- 
cessible to  the  people  of  his  district.  He  loved  his  joke  with  the  sturdy 
farmers,  his  chat  with  the  city  bankers,  his  argument  with  the  native 
gentry,  few  and  far  between.  When  out  with  his  dogs  and  gun  he  had 
no  end  of  questions  to  ask  every  man  he  met.  • After  a gallop  across 
country,  he  would  rest  on  a charpoy,  or  country  bed,  and  hold  an  im- 
promptu levee  of  all  the  village  folk,  from  the  headman  to  the  barber. 
‘ Jan  Larens ,’  said  the  people,  ‘ sub  janta ,’  that  is,  knows  everything. 
For  this  very  reason  he  was  a powerful  magistrate,  and,  I may  here  add, 
a brilliant  and  invaluable  revenue  officer. 

Secondly,  he  was  never  above  his  work.  I have  an  indistinct  recol- 
lection of  his  arresting  a murderer,  on  receiving  intelligence  of  the 


52 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


crime,  with  his  own  hand.  At  all  events,  where  the  report  of  a murder, 
an  affray  with  wounding,  or  a serious  robbery  came  in,  John  Lawrence 
was  at  once  in  the  saddle  and  off  to  the  spot.  With  greater  deliberation, 
but  equal  self-devotion,  he  proceeded  to  the  spot  to  investigate  impor- 
tant disputes  about  land,  crops,  water  privileges,  boundaries,  and  so 
forth.  The  Persian  proverb,  * Disputes  about  land  must  be  settled  on 
the  land  ’ — ‘ Kuzea  zunieen  buh  dir  zumeen  ’ — was  often  on  his  tongue. 

Thirdly,  owing  to  this  determination  to  go  about  for  himself  and  to 
hear  what  everybody  had  to  say  about  everything,  he  shook  off,  nay,  he 
utterly  confounded,  the  tribe  of  flatterers,  sycophants,  and  informers 
who,  when  they  can  get  the  opportunity,  dog  the  steps  of  the  Indian 
ruler.  What  chance  had  an  informer  with  a man  who  was  bent  on  see- 
ing everything  with  his  own  eyes  ? 

All  this  I might  have  said  of  Donald  Macleod,  of  Robert  Montgomery, 
and  of  other  friends  of  Lawrence  who  became  great  Indian  administra- 
tors. But  John  Lawrence  had  in  addition  a quality  of  hardness,  not 
amounting  to  harshness,  but  not  short  of  severity,  which  made  the  male- 
factor tremble  at  his  name.  He  might  or  he  might  not  be  loved — this 
seemed  to  be  his  mind — but  respected  he  would  be  at  all  events. 

I have  said  enough  to  show  that  in  the  early  days  of  his  Indian  career 
John  Lawrence  was  a most  energetic  and  vigorous  magistrate.  To  do 
any  sort  of  justice  to  the  training  of  those  days  which  prepared  him  for 
future  distinction,  I must  now  turn  to  Lawrence  as  a revenue  officer. 
The  good  old  East  India  Company  which  he  served,  and  which  called 
the  young  men  sent  out  to  rule  her  provinces  * writers,’  called  the  chiefs 
who  gathered  up  her  lacs  of  rupees  and  ruled  her  landed  millions  ‘ col- 
lectors.’ John  Lawrence  then  was  a ‘ collector’  as  well  as  a magistrate, 
and  just  then  the  collector’s  work  was  in  a transition  state,  which  en- 
tailed severe  labour  and  tested  every  faculty.  The  great  survey  and 
settlement  of  the  land  was  in  progress  ; boundaries  were  to  be  marked, 
every  village  measured  and  mapped,  and  registers  of  the  area,  the  soil, 
the  cultivators,  the  rent,  the  land-tax,  in  short,  of  all  the  facts  and  figures 
affecting  the  land,  were  to  be  made. 

How  it  happened  that  Lawrence  was  expected  single-handed  to  ac- 
complish so  vast  a work  I cannot  tell.  All  that  I can  say  is  that  when  I 
was  sent  to  help  him,  I cannot  remember  that  he  had  any  one  to  share 
his  burden  except  his  native  officials,  who  in  those  days  had  purely 
ministerial  powers  in  the  revenue  departments.  For  seven  or  eight 
months  he  lived  amongst  the  agricultural  classes  in  his  tent,  and  thus 
mastered  the  detail  of  revenue  work. 

I was  younger  than  Lawrence,  and  had  been  only  three  or  four  years 
in  India  when  I went  to  join  him  at  Paniput.  For  very  good  reasons  I 
shall  never  forget  my  first  interview  with  my  chief.  He  was,  I was  go- 
ing to  say,  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  only  I am  not  sure  that  he  wore  a shirt 
in  those  days — I think  he  had  a chupkun , or  native  undergarment — sur- 
rounded by  what  seemed  to  me  a mob  of  natives,  with  two  or  three  dogs 
at  his  feet,  talking,  writing,  dictating — in  short,  doing  cutcherry. 


1834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


53 


After  some  talk  with  me  he  summed  up  thus  : ‘ Now  look  at  this  map. 
Paniput  district  is  divided  into  nine  thanahs  (police  circuits):  I give  you 
these  three  at  the  north-western  extremity,  including  the  large  canton- 
ment of  Kurnal.  I put  the  police  and  revenue  work  under  you.  Mind, 
you  are  not  to  get  into  rows  with  the  military  authorities.  If  you  behave 
well  to  them,  they  will  be  civil  to  you.  If  you  can  keep  crime  down  and 
collect  your  revenue  in  your  share  of  the  district,  I will  not  interfere 
with  you.  If  you  want  help,  come  to  me.  All  reports  of  your  own  tha- 
nahs will  be  sent  to  you.  I shall  soon  know  what  you  are  made  of.  Go, 
and  do  not  be  hard  on  the  zemindars  (landowners).  Government  rev- 
enue, of  course,  must  be  paid,  but  do  not  be  hard  : “ The  calf  gets  the 
milk  which  is  left  in  the  cow.”  Come  and  see  me  sometimes.’ 

Lawrence  thus  trusted  me  and  taught  me  to  trust  myself.  From  that 
hour  my  fortune  as  a public  officer  was  made.  I learned  my  work  under 
the  ablest  of  masters,  and  shall  ever  gratefully  remember  the  day  which 
saw  me  installed  as  assistant  to  the  young  magistrate  and  collector  of 
Paniput. 

John  Lawrence  remained  in  charge  of  the  district  which  has 
been  thus  vigorously  described  for  nearly  two  years  (1835-37), 
and  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time  he  was  the  sole  British 
officer  in  charge  of  the  administration.  The  district  was  in  bad 
order  when  he  came  into  it,  for  his  predecessor  had  not  been 
very  competent.  Part  of  it,  moreover,  had  suffered  from  the 
drought  of  1833  and  1834.  ‘To  bring  people,’  says  John  Law- 
rence, ‘ who  were  impoverished  and  discontented  into  order  and 
contentment  ; to  make  them  pay  their  land-tax  punctually  ; to 
deter,  if  not  to  wean,  them  from  their  habits  of  life,  which  were 
those  of  their  ancestors  for  centuries  ; to  revise  the  assessment 
of  the  land-tax  which  had  broken  down,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
carry  on  and  improve  the  general  administration,  was  no  light 
task.’ 

In  his  predecessor’s  time  the  revenue  had  often  been  collected 
almost  in  the  Sikh  fashion,  at  the  point  of  the  sword.  Soldiers 
and  guns  had  been  the  ordinary  accompaniments  of  the  revenue- 
collector.  This  John  Lawrence  did  not  like,  and  he  determined 
to  get  on  without  them.  There  was  one  walled  village  in  par- 
ticular which  was  notorious  for  its  recusancy.  John  Lawrence 
surrounded  it  by  night  with  his  own  police,  and,  stationing  a 
small  knot  of  them  on  each  track  which  led  to  the  pastures, 
gave  them  strict  orders  to  turn  back  into  the  village  all  the  cat- 
tle as  they  came  out  in  the  early  morning.  The  police  did  as 
they  were  told,  and  the  village  cowherds  took  back  word  that 
the  orders  of  the  Sahib  were  that  no  cattle  were  to  be  allowed 


54 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


to  go  to  pasture  till  the  land-tax  was  paid.  Another  and  an- 
other sortie  was  attempted  by  the  cowherds,  but  always  with  the 
same  result.  Meanwhile  the  cattle  were  becoming  more  hungry 
and  more  obstreperous,  and  at  last  a deputation  of  the  villagers 
came  out  and  asked  for  an  interview  with  the  Sahib.  It  was 
granted  ; but  he  soon  found  that  they  had  come  armed  only 
with  the  usual  non  possumus  ; they  had  no  money  and  could  not 
pay.  ‘ Well,’  said  the  Sahib,  ‘ I will  let  you  go  to  the  next  vil- 
lage to  borrow  it,  and  if  you  bring  back  either  the  sum  you  owe 
or  a bond  from  the  banker  to  pay  it  for  you  within  a certain 
day,  well  and  good.  Otherwise  the  cattle  stay  where  they  are.’ 
The  deputation  saw  that  the  Sahib  was  in  earnest,  and  soon  re- 
turned with  the  money.  The  cattle  were  able,  by  two  or  three 
o’clock  in  the  afternoon,  to  pass  out  to  their  long-delayed 
morning  meal,  and  there  was  no  more  trouble  in  the  collection 
of  the  revenue  in  that  part  of  the  district ; no  need  of  guns,  or 
soldiers,  or  even  police. 

Another  incident,  told  me  by  Sir  Richard  Pollock,  is  equally 
illustrative  of  the  change  produced  in  the  Paniput  district  by 
the  change  of  ruler.  His  predecessor,  as  I have  said,  had  not 
been  enough  of  a terror  to  evildoers  ; crimes  had  increased 
pari  passu  with  revenue  arrears,  and  in  his  strenuous  endeavours 
to  introduce  a complete  reformation  John  Lawrence’s  health 
broke  down.  One  day  a Haileybury  contemporary,  who  was  at 
work  in  an  adjoining  district,  rode  over  to  see  him  and  found 
him  ill  in  bed.  Nothing  seemed  to  interest  or  arouse  him.  In 
the  course  of  a talk,  which  was  all  on  one  side,  his  friend  hap- 
pened to  mention  that  at  a place  where  he  had  changed  horses 
that  morning  he  had  found  the  stand  of  a fakir,  and  entering 
into  a conversation  with  him  had  asked  whether  there  was  any- 
thing new  stirring  in  the  neighbourhood.  ‘Indeed  there  is,’ 
replied  the  fakir  ; ‘ Sahib  is  gone,  and  everybody  regrets  him  ; 
for  one,  Larens  Sahib,  has  come  in  his  place  who  is  quite  a dif- 
ferent sort  of  man  ; ’ and  he  then  went  on  to  draw  a dismal  pic- 
ture of  the  way  in  which  rules  were  enforced,  rogues  punished, 
and  revenue  arrears  collected.  ‘ Such  a recognition  of  my  ef- 
forts by  such  a man,’  said  John  Lawrence,  in  telling  the  story, 
* acted  upon  me  like  a tonic,  and  I seemed  to  mend  from  that 
hour.’ 

Thus  the  work  grew  under  John  Lawrence’s  hands,  and  the 
natives  knew  who  was  king.  In  the  evening  he  used  to  hold 
what  he  called  his  durbar — that  is,  he  would  sit  outside  his 


55 


'834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 

tent  in  the  loosest  of  loose  dresses  and  talk  by  the  hour  to  all 
comers.  ‘ You  Feringhis,' said  an  old  chief  to  him  one  night, 
who  had  seen  what  he  thought  to  be  better  days,  ‘ are  wonder- 
ful fellows  ; here  are  two  of  you  managing  the  whole  country 
for  miles  round.  When  I was  a young  man  we  should  have 
been  going  out  four  or  five  hundred  horsemen  strong  to  plun- 
der it.’  So  entirely  was  John  Lawrence  thrown  on  the  natives 
for  society  and  for  recreation  during  his  Paniput  life,  that  he 
seems  to  have  half  forgotten  his  own  language.  A young  civil- 
ian, who  called  upon  him  one  day  on  his  way  up  the  country, 
told  John  Thornton  on  his  return  that  he  had  hardly  been  able 
to  make  out  what  Lawrence  said  to  him,  his  conversation  was 
so  interspersed  with  Persian  words  and  expressions. 

But  the  natives  were  not  his  only  companions.  If  he  had  a 
good  horse  or  a good  dog  he  never  felt  alone  ; and  he  took  care 
in  this  sense  of  the  word  never  to  be  alone.  Ilis  means  at  this 
time  were  small,  and  he  never  spent  much  upon  himself  ; but 
the  sight  of  a fine  Arab  was,  once  and  again,  too  much  for  him, 
as  an  incident  he  was  fond  of  telling,  and  which  has  been  handed 
on  to  me  by  Sir  Richard  Pollock,  shows. 

One  day  a sheikh  brought  a batch  of  Arabs  to  his  station, 
and  one  of  the  first  visitors  to  the  stables  was,  as  a matter  of 
course,  the  collector-magistrate.  A particularly  fine  Arab, 
named  Chanda,  took  his  fancy ; but,  as  the  price  named  for  it 
was  three  thousand  rupees,  and  no  efforts  could  induce  the 
owner  to  take  a smaller  sum,  while  all  that  John  Lawrence  pos- 
sessed in  the  world  was  two  thousand  rupees,  he  was  obliged 
at  last  to  go  home  disconsolate.  On  the  way  it  occurred  to  him 
to  make  one  effort  more,  and  when  he  reached  his  home  he  got 
out  his  two  money-bags,  each  containing  a thousand  rupees, 
put  one  bag  on  each  side  of  him  in  his  buggy,  and  drove  straight 
back  to  the  sheikh.  As  he  stepped  down  he  took  care  to  shake 
the  bags  well  and  make  the  contents  jingle  in  the  old  man’s 
ears,  and  explained  again  that  he  could  pay  down  so  much  in 
cash  and  no  more — that  he  had  no  more.  The  cheerful  jingle 
of  the  rupees  was  too  much  for  the  dealer,  and  Lawrence  went 
home  the  happy  possessor  of  the  Arab,  but  without  a penny  in 
the  world  that  he  could  call  his  own. 

But  Chanda  was  not  so  bad  a bargain  after  all.  On  one 
occasion  he  saved  his  owner’s  life.  John  Lawrence  was  gallop- 
ing home  late  one  night,  as  his  custom  was,  across  country, 
when  the  Arab  came  to  a dead  stand,  nearly  shooting  his  rider 


56 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


over  his  head.  Lawrence  tried  to  spur  him  on,  but  Chanda  re- 
fused to  move,  and  only  after  backing  a good  way,  and  then 
taking  a considerable  circuit,  consented  to  continue  in  the  for- 
mer direction.  The  night  was  very  dark,  and  Lawrence,  who 
had  never  known  his  horse  do  the  like  before,  was  a good  deal 
puzzled.  The  next  day  he  managed  to  make  his  way  back  to 
the  place,  when  he  found,  to  his  horror,  that  he  had  ridden  at 
full  gallop  right  up  to  a large  open  underground  tank  or  cis- 
tern, such  as  are  not  uncommon  in  that  thirsty  country,  some 
thirty  feet  deep.  One  step  more  would  have  been  the  death  of 
both  horse  and  rider.  And  often  afterwards,  in  looking  over 
the  points  of  a horse,  he  would  draw  attention  to  the  full, 
round,  prominent  eye,  able  to  take  in  rays  of  light  invisible  to 
man,  which  had  caught  sight  of  the  yawning  chasm  immediately 
below  him  in  that  dark  night.  ‘ It  was  an  eye  like  that,’  he 
said  one  day,  as  he  was  examining  a fine  horse’s  head  in  Mr. 
Woolner’s  studio,  ‘which  saved  my  life.’ 

The  post  of  collector-magistrate  of  Paniput,  which  had 
hitherto  been  only  an  ‘ acting  ’ one,  now  became  permanently 
vacant,  and  John  Lawrence,  who  had  not  been  thought  too 
young  to  reduce  anarchy  to  order  on  a minimum  of  pay,  was 
thought,  as  it  seems,  too  young  now  that  it  had  been  so  re- 
duced to  keep  things  going  and  to  receive  the  proper  salary. 
And,  to  make  the  disappointment  more  complete,  he  was  super- 
seded by  a civilian  who,  having  failed  as  a judge  and  having 
been  deprived  of  the  less  onerous  appointment,  was  now  given 
the  far  more  difficult  post  of  collector  and  magistrate  of  Pani- 
put ! It  was  red  tape  with  a vengeance  ; but  if  it  first  gave 
John  I,awrence  the  hatred  of  red  tape  which  he  certainly 
showed  when  he  was  in  a position  to  burst  through  its  bonds,  it 
may  be  well  for  all  concerned  that  the  disappointment  came 
upon  him. 

Turned  out  of  Paniput,  John  Lawrence  reverted  to  his  ‘sub- 
stantive ’ post  as  assistant  magistrate  and  collector  of  Delhi,  and 
many  years  afterwards  he  thus  summed  up  what,  as  he  thought, 
he  had  seen  and  done  and  gained  in  these  first  five  years  of  work 
in  India. 

During  my  charge  of  the  Paniput  district,  I completed  my  training  as 
a civil  officer.  It  was  a hard  one,  it  is  true,  but  one  which  I had  no 
cause  ever  to  regret.  It  has  facilitated  all  my  subsequent  labours,  no 
matter  how  varied,  how  onerous.  I had  become  well  acquainted  with 
the  duties  of  an  administrator  both  in  a large  city  and  in  an  important 


1 834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 


57 


agricultural  district.  I had  come  in  contact  with  all  classes  of  the  peo- 
ple, high  and  low.  I had  made  acquaintance  with  most  of  the  criminal 
classes,  and  understood  their  habits  of  life.  I had  seen  all  the  different 
agricultural  races  of  that  part  of  India.  I had  learned  to  understand  the 
peculiarities  of  the  tenure  of  land,  the  circumstances  of  Indian  agricul- 
ture, canal  and  well  irrigation,  as  well  as  the  habits,  social  customs,  and 
leading  characteristics  of  the  people.  During  this  period,  I defined  and 
marked  off  boundaries  between  village  lands,  which  had  been  the  cause 
of  sanguinary  feuds  for  generations  ; I revised  the  revenue  assessments 
of  the  land ; I superintended  the  collection  of  the  revenue  ; I had  charge 
of  the  treasury;  I sought  out  and  brought  to  justice  a number  of  great 
criminals ; I managed  the  police,  and,  in  fact,  under  the  humble  desig- 
nation of  magistrate  and  collector,  was  the  pivot  round  which  the  whole 
administration  of  the  district  revolved.  In  the  discharge  of  my  multi- 
farious duties  I visited,  in  all  cases  of  more  than  ordinary  difficulty,  the 
very  locality  itself.  For  the  most  part,  my  only  aids  in  all  this  work 
were  the  native  collectors  of  the  different  subdivisions  of  the  country. 
In  addition  to  all  these  duties,  I did  what  I could  to  relieve  the  sick.  In 
those  days  we  had  no  dispensaries,  and  the  civil  duty  of  the  medical 
officer  was  limited  to  the  charge  of  the  jail.  I used  to  carry  about  a 
good-sized  medicine-chest,  and,  when  the  day’s  work  was  over,  was  con- 
stantly surrounded  by  a crowd  of  people  asking  for  relief  for  most  of 
‘ the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir.’  Many  a poor  creature  I had  thus  to  send 
away,  simply  from  fear  of  doing  him  harm. 

Such  was  my  daily  life  for  nearly  two  years,  and  such  were  the  lives 
of  my  brother  civilians  in  adjacent  districts.  Half  our  time  was  spent  in 
tents  ; and  every  portion  of  our  charges  would  at  one  time  or  the  other 
be  duly  visited,  so  that  in  the  event  of  any  untoward  accident,  or  serious 
crime,  we  could  judge  pretty  correctly  as  to  the  peculiar  circumstances 
connected  with  it.  These  were  very  happy  days.  Our  time  was  fully 
occupied,  and  our  work  was  of  a nature  to  call  forth  all  our  energies,  all 
our  sympathies,  and  all  our  abilities.  Our  emoluments  were  relatively 
small,  but  the  experience  and  the  credit  we  gained  stood  us  in  good 
stead  in  after  years.  During  this  period  I saw  little  of  English  society, 
finding  that  I could  not  enjoy  it  and  also  accomplish  my  work.  Thus  I 
seldom  visited  the  cantonments  except  on  urgent  business,  and  then 
only,  as  a rule,  for  a single  day.  In  those  days  I met  with  many  curious 
adventures,  and  on  some  occasions  was  in  considerable  peril  of  life,  but 
good  fortune  and  careful  management  combined  brought  me  success- 
fully out  of  them  all. 

These  last  simple  words  are  tantalizing  enough.  They  sug- 
gest but  they  do  not  satisfy.  How  suggestive  and  how  unsatis- 
fying I have  the  best  of  reasons  for  knowing,  for  old  friends  of 
John  Lawrence  have  told  me,  alike  in  writing  and  in  conversa- 
tion, that  when  he  first  came  home  from  India  on  furlough  he 


58 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


used  to  pour  forth  a continuous  flow  of  stories  of  hair-breadth 
escapes  from  assassination,  from  drowning,  from  wild  beasts  ; of 
great  criminals  hunted  down  ; of  cattle-liftings  on  a gigantic 
scale  ; of  riots  and  raids  ; of  robberies  and  murders  ; of  thugs 
and  dacoits  ; of  feats  of  his  favourite  dogs  or  horses, — all  drawn 
directly  from  his  own  experience.  And  again,  many  years  af- 
terwards, when  he  had  retired,  as  he  thought,  from  public  life, 
and  when  a family  of  children  was  growing  up  around  him  at 
Southgate,  or  at  Brocket  Hall,  it  was  their  ordinary  Sunday 
evening’s  treat  to  hear  one  of  these  wonder-stirring  adventures. 
‘ What  shall  it  be  ? ’ he  always  used  to  begin  by  asking — ‘ a 
hunt,  a robbery,  or  a murder  ? ’ The  children,  with  that  appe- 
tite for  the  awe-inspiring  which  is  one  of  the  most  pleasurable 
pains  of  childhood,  and  one  of  the  most  loved  regrets  of  a later 
and  a sadder  age,  generally  first  chose  the  murder.  But  their 
father  had  an  abundant  store  of  each  kind  from  which  to  draw. 

Unfortunately  it  occurred  to  no  one,  either  in  those  earlier 
days  when  few  people  thought  that  he  would  become  great,  or 
in  later  days  when  he  had  already  become  so,  to  write  these 
stories  down,  and  many  of  them  are  therefore  irrecoverably  lost 
to  the  world.  But  I am  told  that  greybeards  of  the  Delhi  dis- 
trict, and  of  the  Jullundur  Doab  still  talk  of  his  deeds  of  prowess 
and  skill  around  the  village  well,  and  tell  them  to  their  chil- 
dren’s children.  It  may  well  therefore  happen  that  some  of 
these  may  go  down  to  posterity,  magnified  and  multiplied  as 
they  go,  and  that  centuries  hence  Jan  Larens  may  play  in 
the  North-West  of  India  something  of  the  part  which  the  Trolls 
and  Jotuns,  or  even  Thor  and  Odin,  have  borne  in  the  sad  and 
serious  European  North;  and  that  he  may  live  for  ever  in 
Eastern  song  and  fable  along  with  the  great  heroes  of  the  long 
past,  Zal  and  Rustum,  Solomon  and  the  two-horned  Iskander. 
It  would  be  well  if  an  immortality  of  the  kind  had  always  been 
as  well  deserved — acquired,  that  is,  by  deeds  at  which  no  one 
need  blush,  and  for  which  no  human  being  was  the  worse,  and 
many  were  much  the  better. 

What  a diary  John  Lawrence’s  would  have  been  during  this 
early  period  of  his  life,  had  he  had  the  patience  to  keep  one  ! 
But  fortunately  his  adventures,  even  in  the  absence  of  all  diaries 
and  contemporary  letters,  need  not  be  wholly  lost  to  his  coun- 
trymen. When,  after  the  death  of  the  Arabian  prophet,  dis- 
putes arose  as  to  the  meaning  of  a Sura,  or  the  binding  char- 
acter of  a Tradition,  and  no  answer  could  be  obtained  from  the 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 


59 


shoulder-of-mutton  bones, or  the  oyster-shells  or  the  bits  of  wood, 
or  the  leaves  of  trees,  on  which  the  Sacred  Message  had  been 
originally  written,  recourse  was  had  to  ‘ the  breasts  of  the  faithful,’ 
and  there  a satisfactory  answer  or  explanation  was  often  found. 
From  ‘the  breasts  of  the  faithful’  scattered  everywhere  help 
has  been,  I think  I may  say,  as  diligently  sought  by  me  as  it 
has  been  freely  given.  From  the  breasts  of  Montgomery  and 
Cust,  of  Trevelyan  and  Raikes,  of  Thornton  and  Pollock,  and 
several  other  of  his  earlier  friends  ; from  the  recollections  of  his 
wife  and  children  ; from  a host  of  his  later  friends  in  England  ; 
not  least,  from  his  devoted  lady-secretary, — I have  gathered 
up  such  fragments  as  I could  of  the  history  of  his  earlier  and 
more  adventurous  career ; and  from  these,  as  well  as  from  my 
own  recollections  of  his  conversation,  and  from  five  or  six 
stories,  which,  shortly  after  his  marriage,  with  the  aid  of  his 
ever- ready  and  faithful  helper,  he  himself  committed  to  writing, 
I am  able  to  give  some  slight  idea  of  the  dauntless  tracker  of 
criminals,  of  the  ‘mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord,’  of  the  giant 
in  strength  and  in  courage,  in  roughness  and  in  kindliness,  in 
sport  and  in  work,  which  John  Lawrence  then  was. 

No  Samson,  no  Hercules,  no  Milo,  no  Arthur,  can  have  had 
more  stories  of  personal  prowess,  of  grim  humour,  of  the  relief 
of  the  distressed,  to  tell  than  he.  Physically  he  was  a Hercules 
himself,  as  the  noble  busts  of  him  by  Mr.  Woolner,  and  the  re- 
markable portrait  by  Mr.  Watts,  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will, 
some  day,  become  the  property  of  the  nation,  may  still  show  to 
those  who  have  never  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  man 
himself.  Physical  strength,  commanding  height,  activity  of 
body,  elements  of  power  as  they  are  everywhere,  are  nowhere 
more  potent  than  among  the  natives  of  India,  whether  among 
the  enervated  Bengalis,  who  can  at  least  admire  in  others  what 
they  do  not  possess  themselves,  or  among  the  wiry  Sikhs  and 
relentless  Afghans,  who  can  hardly  fail  to  appreciate  that  of 
which  they  themselves  possess  so  large  a share.  And  when 
these  physical  characteristics  are  combined  with  others,  moral 
and  intellectual,  which  are  conspicuously  wanting  in  most  In- 
dian races — with  absolute  truthfulness  in  word  and  deed,  with 
active  benevolence,  with  a sagacity  which  is  the  result  not  of 
mere  shrewdness,  but  of  untiring  honesty  of  purpose,  with 
boundless  devotion  to  duty  and  hard  work— their  possessor  be- 
comes a power  indeed  in  the  land. 

On  board  the  ship  on  which  John  Lawrence  first  went  out 


6o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


to  India,  he  used,  even  when  weakened  by  sea-sickness,  to 
astonish  the  passengers  by  the  ease  with  which  he  could  hold 
out  at  arm’s  length  a cannon-ball  which  few  of  them  could  lift 
at  all.  Excitement  sometimes  lent  him  almost  a preternatural 
degree  of  strength.  One  night  an  Indian  village  was  in  flames  ; all' 
efforts  to  extinguish  it  were  useless,  and  an  old  woman,  finding 
that  neither  she  nor  her  belongings  fiad  the  strength  to  carry 
out  a sack  of  corn,  almost  all  the  worldly  goods  she  possessed, 
from  her  cottage,  sat  down  upon  it,  determined,  like  the  Roman 
senators  of  old,  to  perish  with  her  household  goods.  John 
Lawrence,  who  just  then  appeared  upon  the  scene,  in  a sudden 
access  of  strength,  like  the  Samson  that  he  was,  caught  up  the 
sack,  and,  like  his  prototype  with  the  gates  of  Gaza,  carried  it 
to  a safe  distance  from  the  burning  house.  The  old  woman, 
finding  that  her  sack  of  corn  was  saved,  was  no  longer  unwill- 
ing to  save  herself,  and  John  Lawrence,  going  the  next  day  to 
the  spot,  found  that  he  was  quite  unable  even  to  lift  the  sack 
from  off  the  ground  ! 

But  these  anecdotes  indicate  mere  bodily  strength.  Here  is 
one  which  implies  something  more. 

Shortly  after  his  appointment  as  Collector  of  Delhi,  a lawless 
chief  in  an  outlying  and  desert  part  of  the  country  refused  to 
pay  his  land-tax.  Attended  only  by  a single  orderly — for  he 
seldom  took  more — John  Lawrence  rode  thither,  a distance  of 
some  thirty  miles,  very  early  in  the  morning,  to  demand  or  to  en- 
force payment.  The  village  was  walled,  the  gates  were  shut 
and  barred,  and  not  even  his  strength  was  able  to  force  an  en- 
trance. What  was  he  to  do  ? To  go  back  would  be  a confession 
of  defeat  and  would  encourage  other  neighbouring  chiefs  to 
give  similar  trouble.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  the  hottesi 
season  of  the  year.  There  was  no  food,  no  shelter,  no  shade 
outside  the  walls  except  that  of  a single  sickly  babul  tree. 
Finally,  there  were  no  troops  within  thirty  miles.  lie  sent  a 
hasty  note  by  his  orderly  back  to  Delhi  asking  for  some  guns, 
and  then  sat  down  under  the  babul  tree,  exactly  opposite  the 
principal  gate,  a single  man  beleaguering  or  threatening  a forti- 
fied post  ! The  fierce  sun  of  India  had  done  its  worst,  and  was 
fast  subsiding  towards  the  horizon,  but  still  no  guns  appeared, 
and  still  the  resolute  Collector  sat  on.  At  last  the  chief  of  a 
neighbouring  village  approached  and  offered,  should  the  Sahib 
so  will,  to  help  him  to  reduce  his  subjects  to  submission.  John 
Lawrence,  knowing  that  in  India,  as  elsewhere,  jealousy  is  a 


1834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


6l 


ruling  motive  among  neighbouring  potentates,  accepted  his 
offer  for  what  it  was  worth.  The  result  of  a mereshowof  force, 
backed  up  by  John  Lawrence’s  stern  resolution,  was  the  sub- 
mission of  the  recusant  chieftain,  the  infliction  of  a fine  over 
and  above  the  land-tax,  and  the  return  of  the  Collector  in  tri- 
umph to  Delhi,  after  winning  a bloodless  victory,  and  without 
even  the  news,  which  has  so  often  struck  terror  into  the  native 
breast,  having  reached  the  village,  that  the  ‘guns  were  coming.’ 

Years  afterwards,  when  the  Collector  of  Delhi  had  risen  to  be 
Chief-Commissioner  of  the  Punjab,  and  had  just  succeeded  in 
winning  back  Delhi  from  the  mutineers,  a list  of  rebel  chiefs 
who  had  been  sentenced  to  death  was  presented  to  him  for  his 
signature.  The  first  name  on  the  list  attracted  his  attention, 
for  it  was  that  of  the  Goojur  chieftain  who  had  given  him  sitch 
timely  aid  twenty  years  before  ; and  he  struck  his  name  off  the 
list  and  spared  his  life. 

So  much  for  the  way  in  which  John  Lawrence  managed  the 
turbulent  chieftains  of  his  district.  Now  for  a story  illustrative 
of  the  manner  in  which  he  detected  crime  in  a different  stratum 
of  native  society.  I have  pointed  out  already  how  numerous 
were  the  criminal  classes  in  the  Delhi  district,  and  have  endeav- 
oured to  indicate  the  circumstances  which  had  tended,  for  a cen- 
tury past,  to  attract  them  thither  and  to  give  immunity  to  their 
crimes.  The  story  which  I am  about  to  relate  is  one  of  a col- 
lection of  four  or  five  which  Mrs.  John  Lawrence  took  down 
from  her  husband’s  dictation  at  Delhi  in  the  spring  of  1845, 
with  a view  to  the  amusement  of  a younger  generation  who  were 
just  then  beginning  to  appear.  I give  it  in  full  as  an  illustra- 
tion as  well  of  John  Lawrence’s  style  in  storytelling  as  of  his 
energy  and  sagacity  in  action. 

The  Brothers. 

I think  it  was  in  the  month  of  June,  1835,  during  my  magistracy  of  the 
district  of  Paniput,  in  the  North-West  Provinces  of  India,  when  a murder 
occurred  which  interested  me  so  much  that,  though  many  years  have 
elapsed,  I recollect  the  whole  circumstances  of  the  case  as  if  they  had 
occurred  yesterday.  The  night  being  sultry,  I had  ordered  my  bed  to 
be  placed  outside  the  bungalow,  in  the  open  air.  This  is  a practice 
common  in  India  when  the  nights,  as  at  that  season,  are  very  hot  and 
dry;  and,  however  dangerous  it  may  appear  to  people  in  Europe,  is 
there  done  with  perfect  impunity. 

I had  undressed  in  my  room,  and  having  put  on  my  night-clothes, 
which  in  that  part  of  India  consist  of  a complete  suit,  covering  the  per- 


62 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


son  from  top  to  toe,  was  walking  towards  my  bed,  preceded  by  my  old 
bearer,  or  valet,  carrying  the  wax  taper.  Suddenly  we  were  disturbed 
by  the  appearance  of  my  khansama,  Ali  Khan,  who,  rushing  forward 
with  pallid  face  and  faltering  tongue,  explained  that,  on  his  way  to  the 
town,  he  had  just  witnessed  a murder  close  to  my  gate.  I was  inclined 
at  first  to  doubt  his  story,  but  on  questioning  him  further  was  convinced 
that  it  was  too  true.  Ali  Khan  explained  that,  after  seeing  everything 
settled  for  the  night,  he  was  on  his  way  to  his  house  in  the  town  when 
his  attention  was  called  to  a scuffle  between  several  persons  a little  in 
front  of  him.  Being  alarmed,  he  squatted  down  and  watched,  when  he 
saw  three  or  four  men  knock  another  down  and  cut  his  throat,  after 
which  they  decamped.  On  seeing  this  he  had  immediately  run  back  to 
give  the  alarm.  After  hearing  his  account  I exclaimed,  ‘ Ai pajee  ! (you 
low  fellow)  why  did  you  not  run  and  help?’  Ali  Khan  replied,  * I was 
not  armed,  and  therefore  could  give  no  assistance,  and  if  I had  cried 
out  they  would  have  killed  me  also.’ 

On  hearing  this  I immediately  sent  him  off  to  turn  out  the  guard,  dis- 
patched the  old  bearer  for  my  pistols,  and  taking  the  taper  from  him, 
without  waiting  to  dress,  ran  off  towards  the  place  the  khansama  had 
pointed  out.  On  arriving  I found  the  body  lying  on  the  face,  weltering 
in  its  blood,  and  covered  with  wounds.  The  countenance  was  cut  and 
slashed  in  every  direction,  the  head  was  nearly  severed  from  the  body; 
and  even  the  hands  and  arms  and  legs  were  covered  with  wounds.  As 
I stooped  down  to  examine  the  corpse,  which  was  still  warm,  a sudden 
gust  of  wind  blew  out  my  candle.  Seeing  therefore  that  nothing  could 
be  done  till  assistance  arrived,  I sat  down,  and  after  a few  minutes 
which,  in  my  impatience,  seemed  an  hour,  I discovered  the  bearer  run- 
ning along  with  my  pistols.  The  old  fellow  did  not  seem  to  like  the 
business,  for  after  every  few  yards  he  stopped  and  looked  back,  loudly 
vociferating  for  the  guard.  However,  on  hearing  me  call,  he  became  more 
assured  and  ran  up  to  me.  In  a short  time  a part  of  the  guard  appeared, 
half-armed  and  half-dressed,  with  flambeaux  and  torches. 

By  this  time  the  moon  began  to  rise  and  cast  her  light  over  the  plain, 
which  was  of  much  assistance  to  us.  The  first  thing  was  to  examine  the 
ground,  and,  the  soil  being  light  and  sandy,  we  had  no  difficulty  in 
tracking  the  murderers  for  some  distance.  In  India  the  science  of  track- 
ing, whether  it  be  the  marks  of  man  or  beast,  is  well  understood,  and  I 
have  known  such  adepts  in  the  art  as  to  be  able  to  follow  a track  for 
hundreds  of  miles,  and  that  too  when  a person  unskilled  in  the  art  could 
discern  nothing. 

I was  once,  with  a party  of  villagers  and  police,  following  a number 
of  Thugs  who  had  murdered  five  travellers  on  the  preceding  night.  The 
ground  was  hard  and  covered  with  grass,  and,  beyond  the  marks  of  a 
struggle  here  and  there,  I could  discern  nothing,  yet  the  men  who  were 
with  us,  after  minutely  examining  the  spot,  carried  the  traces  for  many 
miles.  On  the  way  they  told  me  the  number  of  men,  women,  children, 
and  ponies  of  which  the  party  consisted,  and,  strange  to  say,  on  their 


1S34-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT.  63 

apprehension,  which  took  place  the  next  day,  the  description  turned  out 
right  in  every  particular. 

However,  to  return  to  my  story  : we  found  that  the  murdered  man 
was  on  his  way  from  the  city  to  my  house,  that  he  had  come  to  a certain 
point  alone,  when  he  was  suddenly  attacked  by  several  men.  He  had 
run  some  distance,  when  one  of  them  headed  and  turned  him  towards 
the  others.  Here  he  had  fought  and  been  killed.  The  distance  we  ex- 
amined was  some  two  or  three  hundred  yards,  and  in  this  space  we 
found  one  of  his  shoes,  three  other  pairs,  the  scabbard  of  a sword,  and 
two  bludgeons  covered  with  sword-cuts  and  blood. 

By  this  time  it  was  near  twelve  o’clock  ; the  moon  had  risen  bright 
and  cold,  and  we  were  grouped  round  the  body.  I felt  much  distressed  : 
our  search  had  ended  in  nothing ; we  had  no  definite  clue  to  the  mur- 
derers ; and  so  dreadfully  was  the  face  disfigured,  that  we  could  not 
discover  the  probable  caste  and  profession  of  the  man,  much  less  who 
he  was.  I had  in  my  time  seen  many  cases  of  murder,  but  the  present 
one  seemed  fairly  to  puzzle  me.  To  think  that  a man  should  be  mur- 
dered almost  within  a stone’s-throwr  of  my  door  and  that  the  murderers 
should  escape  detection  was  more  than  I well  could  submit  to. 

I sat  down  on  a stone,  directing  some  of  the  sepoys  to  clean  the  dead 
man’s  face  and  try  to  make  out  who  he  might  be.  What  increased  the 
difficulty  was  that  the  body  was  nearly  naked,  having  nothing  but  a 
‘ dhoty  ’ or  linen  cloth  round  the  loins.  The  evening  having  been  warm, 
he  had  evidently  been  walking  in  this  state — a practice  in  that  country 
very  common  with  all  classes,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  After 
rubbing  and  cleaning  the  face  for  some  time,  one  of  the  guard  attached 
to  the  Collector’s  office  called  out,  ‘ Why,  I verily  believe  it  is  our  com- 
rade Ram  Sing ! I am  sure  I know  the  curl  of  his  moustache  ; he  was 
smoking  with  me  only  this  evening.’  After  much  discussion  it  seemed 
to  be  the  opinion  of  the  majority  that  it  was  Ram  Sing,  though  some 
still  doubted.  So  much,  however,  was  agreed  to  by  all,  that  he  was 
missing,  and  that  the  deceased  was  about  his  size.  Taking  it  for  grant- 
ed that  it  was  Ram  Sing,  we  began  speculating  who  could  be  the  mur- 
derers. 

I remarked,  ‘ Whoever  they  may  be,  it  was  clearly  from  revenge  they 
murdered  him,  or  they  never  w'ould  have  mangled  his  body  in  this  way.’ 
One  of  the  men  added,  ‘ The  man  who  outran  and  turned  him  must  be 
a great  runner,  for  Ram  Sing  was  an  active  fellow.’  ‘ Yes,’  says  an- 
other, ‘ I see  one  of  the  shoes  has  an  iron  heel  and  no  one  but  a constant 
runner  w^ould  need  such  a thing.’  Hearing  this,  I began  to  consider 
what  class  of  men  would  come  under  this  description,  when  it  occurred 
to  me  that  the  post  throughout  the  country  was  carried  by  footmen. 
Turning  round,  I remarked,  ‘ The  “ dawk  wallahs”  (postmen)  are  great 
runners  : had  he  a feud  with  any  of  them  ? ’ A sepoy  instantly  ex- 
claimed, ‘ Ram  Sing  had  a brother  named  Bulram,  a postman,  with 
whose  wife,  as  people  say,  he  wras  rather  too  intimate.’  ‘ Pooh ! ’ says 
another,  ‘ that  is  an  old  business,  which  Bulram  well  knew.  Besides, 


64 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


who  would  kill  his  brother  for  such  a thing  ? ’ Now  it  is  specially  neces- 
sary to  remark  that  such  connections,  however  monstrous  in  our  eyes, 
are  very  common  among  the  Jats,  to  whom  the  brothers  belonged. 
Among  them  it  is  the  practice  that  when  an  elder  brother  dies  the 
younger  lives  with  the  wife,  even  though  he  be  already  married.  Owing 
to  this,  such  illicit  connections  as  that  which  existed  between  Ram  Sing 
and  his  brother’s  wife  were  neither  so  much  thought  of  among  them- 
selves nor  so  much  reprobated  as  might  be  supposed. 

Though  I well  knew  this,  I was  at  once  satisfied  that  we  had  the  right 
clue  at  last ; so,  sending  the  greater  part  of  the  men  back  to  the  house, 
and  ordering  a horse  to  be  sent  after  me,  I determined  to  follow  up  the 
search.  We  immediately  started  for  the  town,  which  was  about  half  a 
mile  distant,  and  directed  our  steps  to  Bulram’s  house.  Here  we  found 
the  wife,  who  said  she  had  not  seen  her  husband  that  day,  that  he  was 
probably  at  the  post-house,  and  that  the  brother  had  been  down  that 
evening,  had  eaten  his  food  with  her,  and  left  the  house  at  about  ten 
P.M.,  on  his  way  to  guard.  She  added  that,  while  Ram  Sing  had  been 
with  her,  another  post-carrier,  a friend  of  her  husband,  had  come  and 
inquired  after  him,  but,  finding  he  was  not  at  home,  had  left  imme- 
diately. 

Disappointed  here,  we  bent  our  steps  to  the  post-house.  On  entering 
the  courtyard  we  found  a number  of  the  carriers  lying  on  the  ground  fast 
asleep,  and  Bulram,  the  person  we  were  in  search  of,  quietly  seated  in 
a corner  smoking  his  hookah.  I immediately  went  up  and  addressed 
him  on  some  indifferent  topics,  but  so  calm  and  self-possessed  were  his 
replies,  that  I began  to  think  I was  in  error,  and  that  he  could  not  have 
committed  the  deed.  However,  taking  up  a lamp  I looked  steadily  at 
his  countenance.  Though  he  knew  my  gaze  was  on  him,  he  never  moved 
a muscle,  but  continued  smoking  with  apparent  apathy,  while  his  eye, 
which  met  mine,  never  quailed  an  instant. 

One  of  the  sepoys  standing  by  me  broke  the  silence  by  exclaiming, 
‘ Bulram,  don’t  you  see  it  is  the  hazoor  (his  Honour),  and  yet  you  re- 
main seated  ! ’ Bulram  never  moved,  nor,  indeed,  appeared  as  if  he 
heard  him.  I put  down  my  hand,  and,  touching  him  on  the  shoulder, 
said,  ‘ Stand  up,  Bulram,  I want  to  look  at  you.’  I had  till  then  been 
stooping  over  him,  as  he  was  squatting  in  the  usual  native  style  on  the 
ground,  and  it  oftly  then  occurred  to  me  that  he  must  have  some  reason 
for  remaining  in  that  posture.  Bulram  immediately  stood  up  and,  as  he 
had  nothing  but  the  usual  cloth  about  his  loins,  the  upper  part  of  his 
body  was  naked.  I put  my  hand  on  his  heart  and  said,  * What  is  the 
matter  that  your  heart  beats  so  violently  ? ’ He  replied,  * I have  been 
bathing,  and,  fearing  to  be  late  at  the  post,  ran  up  all  the  way.’  With 
all  his  composure  and  readiness  of  reply,  there  was  something  about  his 
manner  which  brought  back  all  my  former  suspicions.  I stood  atten- 
tively looking  at  him,  when,  all  at  once,  I perceived  a quantity  of  blood 
on  his  groin,  which  seemed  to  be  welling  out  from  under  his  dhoty. 
Pointing  at  the  blood,  1 said,  ‘ Ah,  Bulram,  what  means  this  ? ’ He 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 


65 


gazed  at  me  for  an  instant  and  then  said,  ‘ Don’t  trouble  yourself,  rnaino 
usko  mara  (I  killed  him).’  Putting  up  my  hand  for  everyone  to  remain 
silent,  I said,  ‘ Whom  did  you  kdl  ? ’ He  replied,  ‘ Ram  Sing,  my 
brother  ; I killed  him.’  I added,  1 Why,  what  had  he  done  ? ’ He  said, 
‘ He  was  intimate  with  my  wife,  therefore  I killed  him.’ 

On  this  he  was  handcuffed,  and,  leaving  the  house,  I mounted  my 
horse,  which  had  arrived  in  the  interim,  and  set  out  towards  home.  On 
the  way  I questioned  him  as  to  how  it  was  that  his  accomplices  had 
escaped,  but  that  he  had  not  attempted  to  fly.  He  replied,  ‘ How  could 
I know  that  you  would  have  tracked  me  out  in  this  way  ? They  have 
not  escaped,  they  are  in  the  post-house  on  the  high  road.’  Having  as- 
certained who  they  were,  I instantly  despatched  four  horsemen  to  the 
place,  about  four  miles  off,  to  seize  them.  On  arriving  at  my  house,  I 
took  the  necessary  depositions  of  the  parties  and  Bulram’s  confession. 
At  two  A.M.  I had  just  retired  to  sleep,  when  1 was  awakened  by  the 
return  of  the  policemen  with  the  other  murderers.  Hearing,  however, 
that  they  stoutly  denied  their  guilt,  and  that  nothing  had  been  found  on 
their  persons  to  criminate  them,  I ordered  them  to  be  secured,  and 
went  to  sleep. 

In  the  morning  the  prisoners  were  confronted  with  Bulram,  who 
steadily  persisted  in  his  story  of  the  previous  night,  which  the  others  as 
resolutely  denied.  In  the  meantime  a party  of  trackers  came  in  and 
reported  that  they  had  followed  the  traces  from  the  place  where  the 
murder  was  perpetrated ; that  it  appeared  that  one  man  had  returned 
direct  to  the  city,  and  that  two,  after  a considerable  circuit,  had  gone 
into  the  post-house.  I then  rode  down  to  the  place  with  some  careful 
men,  and,  after  a diligent  and  protracted  search,  they  found  buried 
under  the  earthen  floor  of  one  of  the  sheds  the  murdered  man’s  turban, 
necklace,  sword,  a couple  of  bludgeons  spotted  with  blood  and  covered 
with  deep  cuts,  as  if  from  a sword  or  other  sharp  instrument.  On  these 
things  being  produced  the  prisoners,  who  had  till  then  denied,  acknowl- 
edged the  truth  of  Bulram’s  statement. 

One  of  them  said  that,  being  friends  of  Bulram’s,  they  had  gone  at  his 
request  to  assist  him ; that  they  had  no  enmity  to  the  murdered  man, 
but  had  acted  merely  from  friendship  to  his  brother.  He  added  that  he 
had  gone  to  the  wife  during  the  day  under  the  pretence  of  asking  for  her 
husband,  who  was  standing  at  a little  distance  waiting  for  him,  but  in 
reality  to  see  if  Ram  Sing  were  in  the  house ; that  they  then  went  and 
lay  in  the  ditch  by  the  side  of  the  road  until  Ram  Sing  passed,  when 
they  sprang  out  on  him  ; that  Ram  Sing,  though  surprised,  resisted  des- 
perately until  overpowered  and  knocked  down  ; and  that  as  he  fell  he 
wounded  his  brother  in  the  groin.  It  was  from  this  wound  that  the  blood 
which  I saw  and  supposed  to  be  from  the  wounded  man,  had  flowed, 
and  to  conceal  which  Bulram  had  continued  seated  when  I was  talking 
to  him. 

During  the  day  the  wretched  woman,  the  cause  of  this  horrid  deed, 
hearing  of  the  death  of  her  lover,  came  and  asked  to  see  his  body.  She 
Vol.  I. — s 


66 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


embraced  and  kissed  it  repeatedly,  crying  bitterly,  and  seemed  to  have 
no  thought  but  for  his  untimely  death.  In  the  course  of  the  subsequent 
investigation  many  facts  were  elicited  which,  in  a measure,  seemed  to 
palliate  the  crime  of  Bulram.  It  appeared  that  the  intimacy  had  ex- 
isted many  years,  during  which  the  husband  had  been  perfectly  aware 
of  it.  In  the  preceding  year  there  had  been  a severe  famine  in  the  land, 
during  which  the  husband,  who  was  out  of  employ,  was,  with  his  wife, 
supported  by  Ram  Sing,  who  lived  with  them.  Some  time,  however, 
previous  to  the  murder  Bulram  had  objected  to  the  intercourse  with  his 
wife,  on  which  the  brother  had  promised  never  again  to  visit  the  house. 
The  wife,  on  hearing  this,  immediately  left  her  husband  and  took  refuge 
with  her  father,  where,  in  spite  of  the  entreaties  of  her  own  family  and 
her  husband,  she  insisted  on  remaining.  The  husband,  seeing  her  de- 
termination, went  to  his  brother,  told  him  what  had  taken  place,  and 
begged  he  would  come  with  him  and  use  his  influence  with  the  wife, 
adding,  ‘ You  can  come  to  see  us  as  before,  are  you  not  my  brother  ? 
did  you  not  save  us  from  starving  ? ’ The  wife  on  this  returned  with 
them,  and  a few  days  afterwards  the  catastrophe  I have  related  took 
place. 

The  murderers  were  made  over  for  trial  to  the  circuit  court,  where 
Bulram,  the  husband,  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  and  the  other  two  to 
imprisonment  for  life.  Such  is  my  tale.  It  created  a great  sensation  at 
the  time,  and  Ram  Sing's  fate  was  universally  regretted,  whereas  no  one 
seemed  to  pity  Bulram.  The  general  feeling  appeared  to  be,  ‘ Was  not 
Ram  Sing  his  brother  ? — how  could  he  murder  him  ? ’ 

Delhi : March  4,  1845. 

Nor  were  John  Lawrence’s  zeal  and  activity  confined  to  his 
own  district,  vast  as  it  was.  He  sometimes  made  work  or 
sought  it  for  himself  outside  the  Paniput  district,  and  with 
the  best  results.  Here  is  an  instance.  It  attracted  much  at- 
tention at  the  time  from  the  high  position  held  by  the  mur- 
dered man,  and  from  the  romantic  circumstances  which  led  to 
the  detection  of  the  murderer.  John  Lawrence  was  fond  of  tell- 
ing the  story,  and  more  than  one  version  of  it  has,  I believe, 
appeared  in  print.  From  the  last  of  these,  which  appeared  in 
* Blackwood’s  Magazine’  for  January,  1878,  and  came  then  fresh 
from  Lord  Lawrence’s  lips,  I gather  and  condense  the  following, 
adding  one  or  two  characteristic  incidents  which  seem  in  his  old 
age  to  have  escaped  his  memory,  but  were  certainly  told  by  him 
as  part  of  the  story  on  other  occasions. 

On  the  morning  of  March  23,  1835,  John  Lawrence  was  just 
going  to  his  bath  at  Paniput  after  many  hours  of  work,  when 
he  received  a brief  note  in  Persian  from  one  of  his  police,  stat- 
ing that  news  had  come  from  Delhi  that  on  the  preceding  even- 


6; 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 

ing,  as  William  Fraser,  the  Commissioner,  was  returning  from  a 
visit  to  a neighbouring  Raja,  a native  trooper  had  ridden  up  to 
him  and,  firing  his  carbine  into  his  ‘sacred  body,’  had  killed 
him  on  the  spot. 

William  Fraser  was  a man  of  great  force  of  character  and 
deservedly  popular  among  all  classes,  though  his  regard  for  the 
poor  had  often  brought  him  into  collision  with  members  of  the 
aristocracy.  He  was  also  a great  friend  of  John  Lawrence. 
Grieved  at  the  loss  of  his  friend,  and  thinking  that  his  intimate 
acquaintance  with  every  corner  of  Delhi  might  be  of  assistance 
in  discovering  the  murderer,  Lawrence  instantly  ordered  his 
horse,  and  rode  off  to  Delhi  beneath  the  blazing  sun,  a distance 
of  forty  miles.  There  he  learned  from  Thomas  Metcalfe  and 
from  Simon  Fraser,  the  two  senior  civil  officers  left  in  the  sta- 
tion, that  no  clue  to  the  murderer  had  yet  been  found,  and 
that  though  some  Goojurs — a race  famed  for  their  skill  as 
trackers — had  succeeded  in  following  the  footprints  of  his  horse 
from  the  scene  of  the  murder  for  some  distance  in  the  direction 
of  Delhi,  they  had  failed  to  trace  them  beyond  a point  where 
several  roads  met. 

This  did  not  look  promising.  A casual  remark  which  had 
been  made  by  one,  Futteh  Khan,  to  Metcalfe,  to  the  effect  that 
he  should  not  wonder  if  his  nephew,  the  Nawab  of  Ferozepore, 
knew  something  about  the  murder,  was  reported  to  Lawrence. 
Metcalfe  had  dismissed  it  from  his  mind  as  suggested  by  mo- 
tives of  private  animosity,  but  John  Lawrence  fastened  upon  it 
like  a leech,  and  soon  discovering  that  the  Nawab  had  had  a 
quarrel  with  William  Fraser  about  some  land,  he  forthwith 
proceeded  with  Simon  Fraser  to  a house  in  Delhi  which  be- 
longed to  that  chieftain. 

They  found  no  one  in  the  courtyard,  nor  did  any  voice  from 
within  answer  their  repeated  calls.  Simon  Fraser  entered  the 
house,  and,  during  his  absence,  John  Lawrence,  sauntering  up 
to  a spot  in  the  yard  where  a fine  chestnut  horse  was  tethered, 
began  to  examine  his  points,  and  soon  noticed  some  nail- 
marks  on  a part  of  the  hoof  where  they  are  not  usually  found. 
It  flashed  across  him  in  an  instant  that  it  had  been  reported 
that  Dick  Turpin  had  sometimes  reversed  the  shoes  of  his 
horse’s  hoofs  to  put  his  pursuers  off  the  scent,  and  at  that  same 
moment  one  of  the  Goojurs,  picking  up  a straw,  measured 
carefully  both  the  hind  and  fore  hoofs.  ‘ Sahib,’  he  cried, 
‘ there  is  just  one  straw’s  difference  in  breadth  between  them, 


68  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1834-37 

the  very  thing  that  we  observed  in  the  tracks  on  the  road  ; this 
must  be  the  animal  ridden  by  the  murderer.’ 

While  this  was  being  said  and  done,  a trooper  in  undress 
lounged  up  and,  in  reply  to  a question  or  two,  told  John 
Lawrence  that  he  was  an  orderly  of  the  Nawab  of  Ferozepore, 
and  that  he  had  been  sent  by  his  master  on  a special  mission  to 
the  city.  ‘ This  is  a nice  horse,’ said  Lawrence.  ‘ Yes,’  replied 
the  man,  ‘ he  is  a fine  horse,  but  he  is  very  weak  and  off  his 
feed  ; he  has  been  able  to  do  no  work  for  a week.’  The  appear- 
ance of  the  horse,  so  John  Lawrence  thought,  gave  the  lie  to 
this,  and  espying  at  a little  distance  its  saddle  and  other  har- 
ness lying  on  the  ground,  he  went  up  to  it  and,  finding  that 
the  nosebag  underneath  the  heap  was  full  of  corn,  quietly  slung 
it  over  the  horse’s  head.  The  ‘ sickly  ’ animal  began  to  eat 
greedily.  Here  was  one  link  more,  and,  without  saying  any- 
thing to  excite  the  trooper’s  suspicion,  he  induced  him  to  ac- 
company him  to  the  cutcherry,  where  he  ordered  his  immediate 
arrest. 

Some  fragments  of  note-paper,  which  Simon  Fraser  had 
meanwhile  picked  up  in  a bucket  of  water  in  the  house,  were 
now  fitted  together  by  the  two  men.  The  ink  had  been  all  but 
obliterated  by  the  water,  but  some  chemicals  revived  it,  and 
revealed  the  words  written  in  Persian,  ‘ You  know  the  object 
for  which  I sent  you  into  Delhi  ; and  I have  repeatedly  told 
you  how  very  important  it  is  for  me  that  you  should  buy  the 
dogs.  If  you  have  not  done  so,  do  it  without  delay.’ 

It  hardly  needed  John  Lawrence’s  penetration,  with  the 
threads  which  he  already  held  in  his  hands,  to  discover  that 
‘ the  dogs  ’ were  the  Commissioner,  whose  life  the  trooper  had 
been  too  long  in  taking,  and,  on  his  suggestion,  a message  was 
sent  to  the  Nawab  saying  that  his  presence  in  Delhi  was  neces- 
sary, as  a servant  of  his,  Wassail  Khan  by  name,  was  suspected 
of  the  murder  of  the  Commissioner.  The  Nawab  obeyed  the 
summons,  but  of  course  he  backed  up  the  trooper  in  his  denial, 
and  disclaimed  all  knowledge  of  the  murder. 

Inquiries  which  were  set  on  foot  in  the  Nawab’s  territories, 
while  he  was  detained  in  Delhi,  soon  showed  that  a second 
man  on  foot,  whose  name  was  Unyah  Mco,  was  believed  to 
have  been  present  at  the  time  of  the  murder.  He  was  a free- 
booter, well  known  for  his  extraordinary  strength  and  ileetness 
of  foot.  lie  had  disappeared  on  that  very  night,  and  had  not 
been  seen  since.  Colonel  Skinner,  the  well-known  comman- 


1834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


69 


dant  of  Skinner's  Irregular  Horse,  was  charged  with  the  duty  of 
searching  for  him.  His  whereabouts  was  soon  discovered, 
communications  opened  with  him,  and  promises  of  pardon 
made  if  he  would  give  himself  up  and  turn  King’s  evidence^ 
against  the  murderer.  Not  long  afterwards  a man  appeared  by 
night  and  said,  4 I am  Unyah  Meo,  I will  go  with  you.’ 

His  story  was  soon  told,  and,  simple  truth  as  it  was,  it  reads  like 
a story  from  Herodotus  about  the  ancient  Persian  court,  or  like 
a tale  from  the ‘Arabian  Nights,’ rather  than  what  it  really 
was.  He  had  been  sent,  as  it  appeared,  by  the  Nawab,  with 
instructions  to  accompany  the  trooper  on  all  occasions,  and 
should  the  first  shot  fail  to  kill  the  Commissioner,  who  was  not 
likely,  with  his  well-known  character,  to  die  easily,  he  was  to 
run  in  and  despatch  him  with  his  sword.  Wassail  Khan’s  first 
shot  had  passed  clean  through  the  ‘sacred  body  ’ of  the  Commis- 
sioner, so  Unyah  Meo’s  services  were  not  required  ; but  he  hur- 
ried off  at  once  to  tell  his  master  that  the  deed  was  done. 

All  that  night  and  a good  part  of  the  next  day  he  ran,  and 
towards  the  evening  arrived  at  the  Nawab’s  fort  at  Ferozepore, 
ninety  miles  distant.  He  went  straight  to  the  door  of  the 
Nawab’s  room,  and  demanded  immediate  admittance,  as  he  had 
news  of  importance  to  communicate.  A thick  curtain  only 
shut  off  the  presence-chamber  from  the  ante-room,  and  as  the 
orderly  entered,  Unyah  Meo,  with  the  suspicion  natural  to  one 
of  his  profession,  lifted  up  very  slightly  a corner  of  the  curtain 
and  bent  down,  all  eye,  all  ear,  for  what  might  follow.  He 
heard  the  Nawab  give  orders  that  on  his  leaving  the  room  he 
should  on  no  account  be  allowed  to  leave  the  fort.  Well  know- 
ing that,  now  that  the  deed  was  done,  his  death  would  be  more 
serviceable  to  his  master  than  his  life,  Unyah  felt  that  this  order 
was  a sentence  of  death,  and  the  moment  he  had  told  his  story, 
and  had  been  promised  a large  reward — for  which  he  was  to 
wait  till  the  following  morning — he  slipped  quietly  down  a back 
way,  managed  to  leave  the  fort  unobserved,  and  ran  for  his 
life  to  his  cottage  in  the  jungle,  some  seven  miles  away. 

He  was  tired  out  by  the  ninety  miles  he  had  run  already  ; 
but  fear  gave  him  fresh  strength  and  speed,  and  he  reached 
his  home  just  in  time  for  his  wives — of  whom  he  was  blessed 
with  a pair — to  take  him  up  to  the  flat  roof  of  the  house  and 
conceal  him  under  some  bundles  of  straw.  Soon  the  troopers, 
whose  pursuing  feet  he  had  seemed  to  hear  close  behind  him, 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  But  the  wives,  Rahab-like,  kept  the 


7 o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


secret  well,  and  Unyah,  after  a night’s  rest,  escaped,  like  the 
spies,  to  the  hills,  and  defied  every  effort  to  find  him  till  he 
gave  himself  up  of  his  own  accord,  in  the  manner  I have  al- 
ready described,  to  the  commander  of  Skinner’s  Horse. 

His  story  was  borne  out  by  the  accidental  discovery  of  the 
carbine  which  had  been  used  by  Wassail  Khan,  under  circum- 
stances which  were  quite  in  keeping  with  the  other  marvellous 
features  of  the  case.  A woman  was  drawing  water  from  a well 
close  to  the  Cabul  gate  of  Delhi  ; the  rope  broke,  the  bucket 
fell  into  the  water,  and  the  hook  used  to  recover  it  brought  up, 
not  the  bucket,  but  the  missing  carbine  ! Other  people  de- 
posed that  they  had  seen  the  trooper  return  on  the  night  of  the 
murder  with  his  horse — the  horse  which  could  neither  work 
nor  eat ! — in  a tremendous  lather,  as  though  from  a long  or 
rapid  ride.  The  Nawab  and  his  trooper  still  stoutly  denied  all 
knowledge  of  the  crime,  but  they  were  tried  by  a special  com- 
missioner, found  guilty,  and  hanged  together  before  the  Cash- 
mere  gate  of  the  city. 

It  is  a story  which  John  Lawrence  might  well  be  fond  of 
telling,  and  it  is  not  without  a strange  and  tragic  interest  to 
remark  that  Simon  Fraser,  the  younger  brother,*  who  had 
helped  him  in  the  search,  was  the  very  man  who  twenty-two 
years  later,  when  he  in  his  turn  was  Commissioner  of  Delhi, 
was  to  fall  one  of  the  first  victims  to  the  fury  of  the  mutineers 
in  the  Mogul’s  palace  on  May  11,  1857.  It  did  not  need  a 
similar  displhy  of  sagacity  on  John  Lawrence’s  part  to  discover, 
on  that  occasion,  who  the  murderers  were,  for  the  deed  and  its 
accompaniments  seemed  to  shake  our  Indian  Empire  to  its 
base  ; but  it  did  need  all  his  sagacity,  all  his  courage,  and  all 
his  other  manly  qualities  to  undo  what  they  had  done  ; and 
how  he  was  equal  to  the  occasion  will  appear  in  the  second 
volume  of  this  biography. 

Here  is  a story  of  another  pursuit  which,  though  it  failed  in 
its  immediate  object— the  arrest  of  the  criminal — served,  when 
put  side  by  side  with  the  preceding,  to  deepen  the  feelings  of 
admiration  with  which  the  natives  regarded  their  intrepid  and 
dare-devil  ruler. 

There  was  a notorious  robber  in  the  district  of  Paniput  whom 
John  Lawrence  was  anxious  to  seize.  The  man  had  been 
caught  once,  but  his  wife  had  bribed  the  guard  and  he  had 
escaped.  He  had  committed  several  murders,  and,  one  day, 
John  Lawrence,  receiving  information  that  he  was  to  sleep  that 


1834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


7l 


night  in  a cottage  not  far  distant,  at  once  organised  a party  of 
horse  and  foot  and,  without  communicating  his  intention  to  any 
one,  started  about  ten  at  night  for  the  village.  It  was  a fine 
moonlight  night,  and  a few  miles’  ride  brought  them  to  a river 
which  must  needs  be  crossed.  Lawrence  had  hoped  to  find 
boats  on  the  spot,  but  they  had  been  taken  away  to  a neighbour- 
ing fair,  and  only  one  small  boat  was  left,  which,  though  it  was 
large  enough  to  carry  the  foot  police  across,  would  have  to  take 
many  trips  if  it  was  to  carry  over  the  horsemen  also. 

Time  pressed.  ‘We  must  swim  it,’ said  John  Lawrence. 
I Iis  followers  demurred  ; said  there  were  quicksands,  said  the 
stream  was  too  rapid,  and  they  would  all  be  swept  away. 
‘Well,  you  cowards  may  do  what  you  like,  but  I am  going,’ 
said  John,  and  in  he  plunged  and  swam  his  horse  out  into  mid 
stream.  The  russeldar,  seeing  this,  took  courage,  said  it  was  a 
shame  to  leave  the  Sahib  to  go  forward  alone,  and  crying  out,  * I 
fear  we  shall  both  be  drowned  ! ' he  too  plunged  in  on  horseback 
and  was  followed  by  the  others.  But  his  fears  were  not  altogether 
ill-grounded  : the  horsemen  had  nearly  reached  the  other  side 
in  safety  when  they  came  on  one  of  the  quicksands.  This  im- 
mediately scattered  the  whole  body  of  them.  Some  managed 
to  ford  over,  some  were  thrown  from  their  horses,  and  all  was 
confusion.  Lawrence’s  horse  was  a powerful  animal,  and 
plunged  so  violently  that  his  rider  was  thrown  into  the  river, 
and  with  great  difficulty  reached  the  bank.  There  he  found 
the  horsemen  all  assembled,  and  said  to  them,  ‘You  see  we  are 
all  safe  after  all.’  ‘No,’  was  the  reply,  ‘the  russeldar  is 
drowned.’  * What  ! ’ said  Lawrence,  ‘ the  bravest  of  the  whole 
lot  of  you  ! Let  us  go  in  again  and  see  if  we  can  save  him.’ 
But  none  of  them  would  stir  ; they  looked  on  with  that  placid 
indifference  with  which  Orientals  often  regard  the  fate  of  other 
people,  and — it  must  be  added  in  fairness— often  also  their  own, 
and  in  spite  of  the  objurgations  of  the  magistrate,  they  showed 
no  intention  of  risking  their  own  lives  to  save  that  of  their 
comrade. 

Once  more  John  Lawrence  plunged  in  on  foot,  and  soon  per- 
ceived the  russeldar  struggling  at  a short  distance  from  the 
bank.  He  had  got  under  his  horse,  and  though  he  managed  to 
keep  his  head  above  water,  he  was  evidently  fast  losing  his 
strength  and  senses.  John  swam  to  him  and  supported  him 
by  main  strength  till  his  syce  brought  a rope,  and  then  they 
succeeded  in  dragging  the  drowning  man  to  land.  He  thus 


7 2 LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1834-37 

saved  the  man’s  life,  but  got  a bad  kick  from  the  plunging 
horse. 

In  much  pain  he  pursued  his  way  to  the  village,  and  found 
that,  though  ‘ the  nest  was  still  warm  ’ and  the  wife  and  children 
were  within,  the  object  of  his  search  was  not  at  home.  The 
fact  was,  the  night  was  sultry  and  the  man  had  gone  up  to  the 
top  of  the  house  to  sleep. 

A few  minutes  after  he  was  seen  looking  over  the  parapet, 
and  as  quick  as  thought  John  Lawrence  was  on  the  roof  and 
full  tilt  after  him.  The  murderer,  a man  of  great  strength  and 
stature,  as  well  as  speed,  ran  along  the  roofs  of  the  houses, 
which  were  all  flat  and  joined  each  other.  Finding  that  his 
pursuer  was  close  behind  him,  and  knowing  the  ground  well, 
the  man  jumped  down.  Lawrence  followed  him,  but  jumped 
too  far,  and,  alighting  on  a declivity,  managed  to  dislocate  his 
ankle,  thus  rendering  further  pursuit  hopeless.  The  robber 
escaped  for  the  time,  but  was  caught  not  long  afterwards.  But 
in  any  case  John  Lawmence  lost  no  caste  in  the  eyes  of  his  fol- 
lowers. They  only  wondered  the  more  at  the  uncanny,  the  un- 
accountable eccentricities  of  the  man  who  could  have  the  cour- 
age to  hang  a raja,  and  yet  risk  his  life  to  save  a russeldar  ! 

I conclude  this  chapter  with  the  story  of  one  more  adventure 
— the  discovery  of  a robber — which  is  hardly  less  striking  than 
those  which  I have  already  related.  It  is  one  which  I have 
heard  Lord  Lawrence  tell  himself,  as  none  but  he  could  tell  it. 
But  I prefer  to  give  it  in  the  more  strictly  accurate  form  in 
which  it  has  come  into  my  hands,  having  been  written  down, 
like  the  story  of  ‘ The  Brothers,’  by  Mrs.  John  Lawrence,  at  her 
husband’s  dictation,  in  the  spring  of  1845,  only  a few  years,  that 
is,  after  the  events  related  in  it  happened.  It  contains  incident- 
ally some  interesting  personal  details,  and  is  rich  in  its  obser- 
vation of  the  native  character. 

The  Widow  and  her  Money-bags. 

It  was  my  practice  in  India,  where  everyone  who  wishes  to  preserve 
health  either  walks  or  rides  early  in  the  morning,  instead  of  taking  a 
mere  constitutional  (as  it  is  called),  to  endeavour  to  join  that  object  with 
business,  or,  at  any  rate,  with  amusement.  There  was  always  some  end 
in  view — a village  to  visit,  a new  road  to  be  made,  or  an  old  one  to  be 
repaired,  the  spot  where  a murder  had  been  perpetrated  to  be  examined. 
If  I was  in  tents,  making  my  annual  visits  in  the  interior  of  the  district, 
which  seldom  occupied  less  than  five  months  of  the  year,  there  was 
plenty  to  engage  the  attention.  I seldom  failed  to  visit  every  village 


1834-37  LIFE  and  adventures  at  paniput. 


73 


within  a circle  of  seven  or  eight  miles  before  the  camp  moved  on  an- 
other march.  Their  locality,  the  nature  of  their  soil,  their  means  of 
irrigation — a point  of  much  importance  in  the  East— the  general  appear- 
ance of  the  inhabitants,  and  the  character  they  bore  among  their  neigh- 
bours, were  all  points  on  which  1 was  much  interested  ; for  all  such 
information  was  of  infinite  value  in  the  performance  of  my  daily  duties. 

I had  in  truth  so  much  to  occupy  me,  or,  what  is  pretty  much  the 
same  thing,  made  so  much  occupation  for  myself,  that,  though  often  the 
sole  European  in  the  district,  and  literally  without  any  one  with  whom  1 
could  exchange  a word  in  my  native  tongue,  I do  not  think  that  I ever 
felt  listless  for  a day.  1 sometimes  rode  alone,  but  more  frequently  with 
a single  horseman,  who  either  carried  my  rifle  or  boar  spear.  Thus,  if 
anything  in  the  way  of  game  turned  up,  I did  not  lose  a chance ; and 
if  a messenger  was  required,  or  anything  was  to  be  done,  an  active  fellow 
was  always  ready.  More  than  once  I have  in  this  way  brought  home  a 
buck  ; and  many  is  the  good  run  I have  had  with  wolf,  hyena,  and  wild 
boar.  It  would  have  no  doubt  enhanced  the  pleasure  to  have  had  a 
friend  with  whom  to  contest  the  spear,  and  to  talk  over  the  turns  and 
chances  of  the  field  when  ended.  Still,  when  I look  back  on  those  days, 
it  is  surprising  how  much  I enjoyed  them  in  my  comparative  solitude. 

Nor  was  I thus  always  lonely.  At  times  a friend  or  two  from  the  near- 
est station  would  pass  a week  with  me,  or  a rendezvous  on  the  borders 
of  contiguous  districts  would  be  arranged  among  us,  and  then  the  woods 
would  ring  with  whoop  and  cry  and  wild  halloa.  Oh,  those  were  pleas- 
ant days  ! I hope  some  are  still  in  store  for  me,  for  the  easy,  quiet,  jog- 
trot life  does  not  answer  for  one  who  has  lived  a life  of  action.  I recom- 
mend all  my  friends  to  think  twice  before  they  leave  India;  at  any  rate, 
until  they  feel  themselves  growing  old,  or  want  a pair  of  crutches.  It  is 
but  a melancholy  pleasure,  after  all,  merely  looking  back  upon  such 
scenes. 

However,  to  return  to  my  story,  from  which  I have  strangely  digressed 
My  follower  was  instructed  to  ride  at  a respectful  distance,  so  that  I 
might  freely  converse  with  anyone  I might  pick  up  by  the  way.  One  or 
more  of  the  headmen,  or  some  of  the  proprietors  of  the  village  I was 
visiting,  usually  mounted  his  mare,  and  rode  with  me  to  the  next  vil- 
lage ; thus  acting  as  a guide,  and  at  the  same  time  beguiling  the  tedium 
of  the  way,  often  with  useful  information,  at  any  rate  with  amusing 
gossip. 

I had  one  morning  mounted  my  horse  for  such  an  expedition,  but  had 
not  proceeded  far  when  I met  the  kotwal,  or  chief  police-officer,  of  the 
neighbouring  town,  bustling  along  in  quite  unwonted  haste.  On  seeing 
me,  after  making  the  usual  salutations,  he  reported  that  a burglary  had 
occurred  in  the  town  during  the  previous  night,  and  that  he  was  anxious 
that  I should  visit  the  spot  myself,  as  neither  he  nor  any  of  the  police 
could  make  anything  of  the  case. 

I at  once  assented,  and  as  we  rode  along  I ascertained  that  the  party 
robbed  was  a poor  widow,  who,  with  her  niece,  lived  in  a large  and  sub- 


74 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


stantial  but  rather  dilapidated  house  in  the  neighbouring  town.  The 
robbery,  it  seemed,  had  created  much  sensation,  from  the  circumstance 
that  the  widow  asserted  that  she  had  lost  a large  sum  of  money,  whereas 
she  had  hitherto  been  deemed  miserably  poor.  ‘ Some  of  the  neighbours,’ 
remarked  the  policeman,  ‘ deny  that  she  has  been  robbed  at  all,  and 
indeed  to  me  it  appears  suspicious  ; I suspect  there  is  some  fareb  (de- 
ceit) in  the  matter.  Where  could  such  a helpless  creature  get  so  much 
money  ? It  was  but  the  other  day  that  she  was  exempted  from  her  quota 
of  the  watch-tax,  as  mooflis  (a  beggar),  and  now  she  asserts  that  she  has 
lost  one  thousand  and  fifty  rupees.’  ‘ Well,  well,’  said  I,  ‘ that  will  do  ; 
we  will  hear  what  she  has  to  say  for  herself.  Don’t  you  pretend  to  make 
out  that  she  was  not  robbed.  I suppose  there  are  marks  about  the  house 
of  a forcible  entry  ? ’ * Oh,  yes,’  he  replied,  ‘ I don’t  deny  there  is  a 

hole  in  the  wall  by  which  the  door  has  been  opened.  There  were  two 
marks  of  footsteps  about  the  interior  of  the  courtyard,  but  the  ground 
was  so  hard,  we  could  make  nothing  of  it.  I have,  however,  sent  for  the 
khojia  (tracker),  and  if  anything  is  to  be  discovered,  I am  sure  he  is  the 
man  to  do  it.’ 

By  this  time  we  had  arrived  at  the  house,  where  we  found  some  police- 
men, some  of  the  neighbours,  and  the  widow.  The  khojia,  or  personage 
celebrated  far  and  near  for  his  powers  of  recognising  and  tracing  the 
marks  of  biped  and  quadruped,  had  already  examined  the  premises.  He 
informed  me  that  the  footsteps  were  difficult  to  trace,  from  the  hardness 
of  the  soil,  as  well  as  from  the  passing  and  repassing  of  the  people  ; but 
that  he  had  satisfied  himself  that  there  had  been  two  thieves,  that  the 
two  had  entered  the  house,  but  that  only  one  appeared  to  have  left  it, 
and  that  he  had  followed  those  traces,  through  various  turnings  and 
windings,  till  they  finally  stopped  at  the  house  of  a man  who  was  said  to 
be  the  nephew  of  the  widow  herself.  He  then  showed  me  the  different 
marks,  from  the  interior  of  the  widow’s  house  up  to  the  very  threshold 
of  that  of  the  nephew.  There  were  certainly  some  traces,  but  so  very 
indistinct  to  my  eye  that  I could  form  no  opinion.  The  tracker,  how- 
ever, seemed  perfectly  convinced.  ‘ One  foot,’  he  observed,  ‘ is  small 
and  delicate,  which  goes  to  the  nephew’s  house  ; the  other,  a large, 
broad  foot,  I cannot  trace  beyond  the  courtyard.’  The  nephew  was 
summoned,  his  foot  was  compared  with  the  print,  the  khojia  insisted 
that  it  exactly  corresponded,  and  it  certainly  answered  to  the  description 
he  had  previously  given. 

We  then  entered  the  house  and  carefully  examined  the  premises.  The 
thieves,  it  seemed,  had  picked  a small  hole  in  the  side  of  the  wall,  so  as 
to  admit  a man’s  hand,  and  had  thus  opened  the  outer  door.  It  was 
clear  that  the  theft  was  perpetrated  by  some  one  who  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  premises,  for  the  money  had  been  concealed  in  three 
earthen  pots,  buried  in  the  ground  floor  within  a small  recess.  The 
ground  had  been  dug  up  in  the  exact  spot  where  the  pots  lay,  and  it 
must  have  been  the  work  of  only  a few  minutes,  for  they  were  close  to 
the  surface.  It  seemed  that  there  was  some  suspicion  of  the  nephew  in 


1 834—37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


75 


the  mind  of  both  the  old  woman  and  her  neighbours,  for  he  was  a man 
of  reckless  and  dissolute  habits.  4 But,  widow,’  I said,  ‘ did  he  know  of 
your  treasures  ? — did  he  know  of  the  place  where  you  concealed  them  ? ’ 
‘ No,’  she  replied  to  my  query,  4 I can’t  say  he  did.  I never  let  him 
come  into  the  house  for  many  years,  though  he  has  sometimes  come  as 
near  as  the  door,  and  asked  me  to  make  friends  ; but  I was  afraid  of 
him,  and  never  let  him  pass  my  threshold.’  4 Well,’  1 remarked,  4 it 
seems  a bad  business.  That  you  have  been  robbed  is  evident,  but  there 
seems  no  clue  as  to  who  did  it ; and  as  to  your  loss,  you  must  have  told 
a lie,  for  I hear  it  was  only  a few  months  ago  that,  under  the  plea  of 
destitution,  you  were  exempted  from  the  watch-tax.’  4 My  lord,’  replied 
the  widow,  4 it  is  very  true  that  I pleaded  poverty,  and  poor  enough  I 
am  ; nevertheless  I have  been  robbed  of  a thousand  and  fifty  rupees. 
You  may  believe  me  or  not,  as  you  please;  my  history  is  this.  Some 
forty  years  ago,  or  more,  my  husband  was  a merchant,  well-to-do  in  this 
town  ; but  after  a time  his  affairs  fell  into  disorder,  and  when  he  died 
his  creditors  seized  everything  but  this  house  in  payment  for  his  debts. 
When  dying,  he  told  me  that  certain  moneys  had  long  been  due  to  him 
in  the  holy  city  of  Muttra.  Accordingly  I went  there,  and  collected 
something  more  than  two  thousand  rupees,  with  which  I returned  here, 
and  I have  lived  ever  since  on  this  sum.’  4 What,’  I interrupted,  4 have 
you  lived  on  this  money  for  forty  years,  and  yet  have  a thousand  and 
fifty  rupees,  nearly  half,  left?  ’ 4 Yes,’  said  she,  4 I opened  my  treasure 

once  a month,  and  took  out  two  rupees,  which  lasted  me  and  my  niece 
for  the  month.’  4 Why,’  I remarked,  4 at  this  rate  you  had  enough  for 
the  next  forty  years ; why  could  you  not  pay  the  tax  ? — how  much  was 
it?’  4 Two  pyce  a month,’  she  replied,  4 and  all  widows  are  exempt.’ 

4 Yes,’  remarked  a bystander,  4 if  they  are  poor  ; but  you  are  as  rich  as 
Lakhsmi  (the  Hindu  goddess  of  fortune).  I believe  that  Kali  has  sent 
this  misfortune  on  you  for  your  lying ; do  you  recollect  when  you  were 
assessed  at  one  anna,  how  you  wept  and  tore  your  hair,  and  said  you 
were  starving?  You  are  a sad  liar,  by  your  own  account,  and  are  well 
served.  1 hope  if  you  ever  recover  your  money  the  Sahib  will  make  you 
pay  it  up  with  arrears.’  4 Oh,’  said  the  widow,  clasping  her  hands,  4 re- 
store me  my  money,  and  I will  pay  for  the  rest  of  my  life.’ 

As  I suspected,  from  the  different  circumstances  which  had  trans- 
pired, that  the  nephew  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the  robbery,  I 
directed  his  house  to  be  searched,  but  nothing  which  could  in  any  way 
implicate  him  was  found.  Despairing,  then,  of  discovering  the  crimi- 
nal, I mounted  my  horse,  and  after  telling  the  police  to  be  on  the  look- 
out, I set  off  towards  my  tents.  I had  ridden  some  little  way,  conning 
the  matter  over  in  my  mind,  when  it  struck  me  how  very  singular  it  was 
that  the  khojia  should  persist  in  it  that  only  one  of  the  thieves  had  left 
the  house.  As  the  walls  were  very  high,  and  as  there  was  but  the  one 
door  to  the  courtyard,  it  seemed  as  if  the  thief  must  still  be  inside. 

4 Pooh,  pooh ! ’ I cried,  4 the  thing  is  out  of  the  question ; did  we  not 
search  the  house  ? And,  after  all,  what  could  a thief  be  doing  there  ? 


76 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1834-37 


The  khojia  is  trying  to  mystify  me.’  However,  I was  not  satisfied  ; after 
riding  a little  farther,  I turned  round  and  galloped  back.  I said  to  the 
police,  who  had  not  yet  left,  ‘ We  must  have  another  search,’  and  upon 
this  my  myrmidons  spread  themselves  over  the  premises.  While  they 
were  searching  I began  to  pace  up  and  down,  with  some  little  impa- 
tience, I confess,  as  the  thought  struck  me  of  the  bootless  errand  on 
which  I had  returned. 

Suddenly  I heard  a policeman  exclaim,  ‘ I have  not  seen  him,  but  I 
have  seen  his  eye,’  and  as  he  spoke  he  pointed  to  one  side  of  the  court- 
yard near  where  he  stood.  On  examining  the  spot  we  discovered  what 
appeared  to  be  a small  air-hole  to  some  vaults,  and  from  this  the  man 
persisted  he  had  seen  an  eye  glisten.  Turning  to  the  widow,  I demanded 
what  places  there  were  underground,  when  she  explained  that  there  were 
subterraneous  vaults  which  had  never  been  open  since  her  husband’s 
death,  and  which  she  had  not  thought  of  mentioning  when  we  first 
searched  the  house.  ‘ A second  case  of  Guy  Fawkes,’  thought  I.  ‘ Show 
me  the  entrance.  I dare  say  some  one  is  down  there  ; though  why  any- 
one should  be  such  a fool  as  to  hide  there  passes  my  understanding.’ 
The  old  dame  accordingly  showed  me  a small  door  in  a retired  part  of 
the  courtyard,  which  had  hitherto  escaped  observation.  By  it  we  de- 
scended to  some  very  extensive  vaults,  and  after  some  search,  dragged 
out  a man.  He  had  not  the  money  about  his  person,  but  after  some 
little  hesitation  showed  us  where  it  was  concealed,  at  the  foot  of  one  of 
the  pillars.  He  confessed  that  he  belonged  to  a village  in  the  vicinity, 
that  the  nephew  had  induced  him  to  join  in  robbing  the  old  lady,  whose 
treasures  he  had  for  a long  time  suspected.  It  seemed  that  the  thief  had 
slept  part  of  the  night  in  the  nephew’s  house,  and  that  they  had  been 
prevented  from  effecting  the  robbery  till  late  in  the  night  from  the  num- 
bers of  the  people  who  were  about,  and  consequently  the  morning  had 
broken  before  they  had  time  to  divide  the  booty,  or  dispose  of  it  in  any 
safe  place.  In  the  hurry  and  confusion  it  had  seemed  best  that  he 
should  hide  in  the  vaults,  where  it  was  supposed  that  none  would  think 
of  looking ; for  the  nephew  was  afraid  to  conceal  him  in  his  own  house, 
or  to  allow  him  to  pass  out  of  the  town  with  such  a large  sum  in  silver, 
lest,  being  recognised  by  some  of  the  guards  at  the  postern  as  a stran- 
ger, he  should  be  stopped  and  searched.  When  the  nephew  was  con- 
fronted with  his  accomplice,  his  effrontery  forsook  him,  and  he  confessed 
that  he  had  seen  the  old  woman  smoothing  the  earth  in  the  recess  one 
day  as  he  stood  at  the  threshold  ; and  from  this  circumstance,  coupled 
with  her  always  being  in  that  part  of  the  house,  he  had  suspected  that 
she  had  property  concealed. 

When  the  coin  was  produced,  the  woman  recognised  her  money-bags; 
and  on  opening  and  counting  the  money,  we  found  the  exact  sum  she 
had  stated,  namely,  one  thousand  and  fifty  rupees,  or  about  one  hun- 
dred and  five  pounds  in  English  money  ; so  that  this  poor  creature  had 
lived  on  about  four  shillings  a month,  and  even  supported  part  of  that 
time  a little  niece  ! While  the  money  was  being  counted  and  her  re- 


1834-37  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  PANIPUT. 


77 


ceipt  written  out,  I said  : * You  had  much  better  give  this  money  to  a 
banker,  who  will  allow  you  seven  or  eight  per  cent,  for  it,  and  in  whose 
hands  it  will  be  perfectly  safe  ; otherwise  now  that  folks  know  you  are 
so  rich,  being  a lonely  helpless  old  woman,  you  will  certainly  have  your 
throat  cut.’  ‘ No,  no  ! ’ cried  the  old  harridan,  as  she  grasped  her  bags 
in  an  agony  lest  I should  take  them  from  her,  ‘ no,  no!  I will  bury  it 
where  no  one  will  ever  know.’  I accordingly  allowed  her  to  go  off  with 
her  treasures ; and  out  she  tottered,  bending  under  the  weight  of  her 
money-bags. 

I may  have  failed  in  giving  an  interest  to  this  story,  but  it  certainly 
made  a considerable  impression  on  my  mind  at  the  time.  The  avarice 
and  parsimony  of  the  old  woman  who,  bending  under  the  weight  of  old 
age,  and  possessed  of  wealth  which  she  could  never  hope  to  enjoy,  yet 
grudged  the  payment  of  two  pyce  a month  to  defend  her  from  spoliation, 
if  not  from  being  murdered  ; the  villany  of  the  nephew,  with  his  utter 
want  of  common  sense  and  prudence  in  concealing  his  accomplice  in  the 
very  premises  which  they  had  just  robbed  ; the  acuteness  and  discern- 
ment of  the  tracker,  in  so  ably,  I may  say,  deciphering  the  history  of 
the  transaction  from  the  very  faint  footmarks,  altogether  formed  a pic- 
ture which  it  was  not  uninteresting  to  contemplate.  Of  the  subsequent 
fate  of  the  widow  I do  not  recollect  anything,  as  I shortly  afterwards  left 
that  part  of  the  country ; but  if  she  escaped  being  robbed,  she  concealed 
her  treasures  in  some  out-of-the-way  place,  which,  when  she  dies,  her 
heirs  will  fail  to  discover.  In  this  way,  no  doubt,  large  sums  are  an- 
nually lost,  for  although  property  is  remarkably  safe  in  this  country,  and 
a very  large  rate  of  interest  always  to  be  got,  the  people  are  very  much 
addicted  to  concealing  coin  and  jewels,  probably  from  habits  they  ac- 
quired in  former  times,  when  seldom  a year  passed  that  a village  or  even 
town  was  not  laid  under  contribution,  or  stormed  and  plundered  by  the 
Mahratta  and  Pindari  hordes. 

Delhi : April  14.  1845. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA.  1837— 1S40. 

The  disappointment  which  befell  John  Lawrence  when  in  1837 
he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  Paniput  district,  the  field  of  his 
hard  work  and  his  success,  and  to  fall  back  on  his  subordinate 
position  at  Delhi,  is  one  to  which  any  civilian  in  India  who 
takes  an  ‘acting’  appointment,  as  it  is  called,  is  liable.  So  few 
people  are  able  to  descend  with  anything  like  good  grace  to 
lower  work  when  they  have  already  proved  themselves  capable, 
and  more  than  capable,  of  higher,  that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  there  is  a general  feeling  in  India  against  taking  such 
temporary  appointments.  This,  however,  was  not  John  Law- 
rence’s feeling;  for  when,  in  1842,  he  was  returning  to  India 
after  his  first  furlough,  the  bit  of  practical  advice  which  most 
impressed  itself  on  the  mind  of  a young  civilian  who  was  then 
going  out  for  the  first  time,  and  with  whom  he  had  much  talk, 
was  to  the  following  effect : — 

Never  let  an  acting  appointment,  if  it  should  be  offered  to  you,  slip 
by.  People  will  tell  you  that  such  appointments  are  to  be  avoided,  and 
are  more  plague  than  profit.  It  is  true  that  you  may  occasionally  be 
disappointed,  and  you  will  certainly  not  gain  continuous  promotion  in 
that  line,  but  you  will  get  what  is  more  valuable,  experience,  and  great 
variety  of  it ; and  this  will  fit  you  for  whatever  may  come  afterwards.  I 
have  never  let  an  ‘acting’  appointment  go  by,  and  I am  now  very  glad 
that  I have  not. 

The  young  civilian  to  whom  John  Lawrence  gave  this  part- 
ing advice  between  Malta  and  Alexandria  was  W.  S.  Seton- 
Karr,  who,  though  he  was  not  destined  to  see  much  of  his  ad- 
viser for  many  years  to  come,  was,  in  his  subordinate  position 
under  Lord  Dalhousie,  to  hear  not  a little  of  his  fame,  and  to 
read  not  a few  of  his  masterly  minutes,  and  was,  many  years 
later,  when  John  Lawrence  had  risen  to  be  Governor-General, 
to  be  his  Foreign  Secretary ; after  that  was  to  be  one  of  the 


1837-40 


life  at  gorgaon  and  etawa. 


7 9 


most  constant  and  welcome  visitors  at  his  house  at  Queen's 
Gate,  ending  only  with  the  Sunday  before  his  death  ; and  then 
at  the  great  meeting  of  the  Mansion  House,  called  to  raise  a 
national  monument  to  the  hero  who  was  gone,  was  to  deliver 
one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  appreciative  of  a series  of  admir- 
able speeches,  which  in  themselves  form  the  most  splendid  of 
tributes  to  Lord  Lawrence’s  memory.  Since  then  once  more — 
as  it  seems  specially  suitable  that  I should  acknowledge  here 
— he  has  given  a still  more  signal  proof  of  his  attachment  to 
his  former  chief  ; for  by  a careful  perusal  of  the  whole  of  the 
revised  manuscripts  of  these  volumes,  he  has  enabled  me  to 
correct  many  inaccuracies  as  well  as  given  me  the  benefit  of 
many  sound  criticisms  and  useful  suggestions. 

The  sting  of  the  descent  to  lower  work  did  not  last  long  ; for 
after  three  months  spent  in  his  old  appointment  at  Delhi  John 
Lawrence  was  promoted  to  the  grade  of  ‘joint  magistrate  and 
deputy-collector  of  the  southern  division  of  the  Delhi  terri- 
tory,’ while  he  was  also  to  be  the  ‘acting’  magistrate  and  col- 
lector of  the  city  itself.  After  discharging  this  latter  office, 
which  his  previous  acquaintance  with  all  classes  in  Delhi  must 
have  made  comparatively  easy,  for  six  months,  he  went  off,  in 
July,  1836,  to  his  ‘substantive’  appointment  in  the  southern  di- 
vision. The  work,  the  country,  the  people  of  the  southern 
division,  differed  in  many  respects  from  the  northern,  and  so 
tended  to  give  him  that  variety  of  experience  on  which  the  re- 
mark that  I have  just  quoted  shows  that  he  placed  so  much 
value.  Extending  as  it  did  over  an  area  of  about  2,000  square 
miles  and  containing  a population  of  700,000  souls,  of  whom 
probably  one  half  were  Hindus,  the  other  half  Mohammedans, 
it  included  representatives  of  all  the  races  with  whom  he  had 
become  acquainted  in  Paniput. 

But,  besides  these,  there  were  many  others,  such  as  the 
Meenas  and  Mehwatties,  of  whom  he  had  no  previous  knowl- 
edge. These  people  were  great  robbers,  perhaps  the  greatest 
in  Northern  India.  In  former  times  they  had  been  organised 
plunderers,  roaming  about  the  country  almost  in  small  armies, 
and  harrying  the  villages  with  fire  and  sword  up  to  the  very 
walls  of  Delhi.  Even  now,  though  restrained  from  open  vio- 
lence and  proving  under  a strong  government  almost  a docile 
people,  they  were  very  thievish  in  their  propensities,  and  gave 
abundant  proof  that  they  only  wanted  opportunity  to  fall  back 
on  their  old  habits.  Like  the  Ranghurs  of  the  northern  dis- 


8o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


trict,  they  were  all  Mohammedans  converted  from  Hinduism  as 
late  as  the  time  of  Aurungzebe,  and  of  course  retained  many 
of  their  Hindu  customs  and  traditions.  Many  a conversation 
did  John  Lawrence  have  with  them  on  those  good  old  times. 
They  talked  as  freely  with  him  as  he  with  them,  and  frankly 
avowed  that  they  looked  back  regretfully  on  the  palmy  days 
when,  to  use  the  words  of  their  favourite  adage,  ‘ the  buffalo 
belonged  to  him  who  held  the  bludgeon  ’ — Jishee  lattee  oosee  ha 
hhains. 

The  district  was  particularly  well  adapted  for  the  indulgence 
of  their  predatory  propensities.  It  was  irregularly  shaped,  was 
bordered  on  two  sides  by  independent  chieftainships,  and  was 
intersected  by  many  low  ranges  of  hills,  and  by  the  deep  beds 
of  hill-torrents,  which  ran  dry  in  all  seasons  except  during  the 
rains,  and,  like  the  wadies  of  the  Arabian  or  Syrian  deserts, 
served  as  the  resort  of  banditti,  who  sallied  out  thence  on  any 
travellers  who  ventured  to  pass  without  sufficient  escort.  ‘ Many 
a strange  story,’ says  John  Lawrence,  ‘did  the  people  of  the 
country  tell  of  the  doings  of  their  ancestors  in  this  way.' 

The  difficulties  of  ruling  such  a people  were  not  lessened  by 
the  calamitous  drought  which  in  1837-38  had  fallen  on  many 
parts  of  Upper  India  and,  following  so  soon  after  that  of 
1 833-34,  had  caused  great  suffering,  even  when  it  did  not  reach 
the  dread  extremity  of.  actual  starvation.  The  chief  force  of 
the  visitation  fell  on  the  native  states  of  Rajpootana,  Bhurt- 
pore,  and  Bundelkhund  ; but  the  Agra  division  of  the  North- 
West  Provinces,  including  the  districts  of  Agra,  Etawa,  and 
Mynpoorie,  also  suffered  much,  and  there  was  terrible  loss  of 
life.  In  John  Laurence’s  own  district,  though  the  distress  was 
great,  no  lives  were  lost.  The  soil,  unlike  the  clay  of  many 
parts  of  Northern  India,  which  bakes  as  hard  as  iron,  is  of  a 
light  porous  character,  and  does  not  need  much  rain.  More- 
over, the  district  was  well  supplied  with  wells  and  jheels  which 
could  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  irrigation.  Thus  it  happened 
that,  owing  to  the  constant  care  and  energy  of  John  Lawrence 
and  his  colleague,  the  well-known  Martin  Gubbins,  notwith- 
standing the  general  distress  and  the  predatory  and  warlike 
character  of  the  people  ; notwithstanding  also  the  fact  that  not 
one  single  soldier  was  stationed  in  the  district ; yet  crime  and 
violence  were  kept  within  moderate  limits.  If  they  did  not 
actually  decrease  they  did  not  increase,  and  there  arc  times 
and  occasions  when  to  be  able  to  say  with  truth  that  crimes  of 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


8l 


violence  have  not  increased  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  extra- 
ordinary exertions  have  been  crowned  by  the  success  which 
they  deserve. 

And  here  I may  insert  a story  which  gives  a forcible  picture 
of  one  of  the  difficulties  with  which  a magistrate  had  in  those 
days  to  deal  almost  singlehanded — a difficulty,  moreover,  which, 
as  recent  events  in  Mooltan  and  elsewhere  have  shown,  has  not, 
even  now,  wholly  disappeared.  I give  it  with  some  consider- 
able abridgment,  but,  as  far  as  possible,  in  John  Lawrence’s 
own  words,  for  they  show  the  man  throughout,  and  exhibit  in 
strong  relief  his  courage,  his  vigour,  and  his  readiness  of  re- 
source. 


Passive  Resistance. 

In  the  spring  of  1838,  when  the  famine  which  had  for  some  time  af- 
flicted the  north-western  provinces  of  India  was  still  raging,  it  happened 
that  I was  encamped  not  far  from  the  town  of  Rewari.  The  pergunnah 
(or  barony)  was  just  surveyed,  and  I had  come  down  to  that  part  of  the 
country  to  settle  the  land  revenue  for  a term  of  thirty  years.  While  I 
was  there,  a feud  arose  between  the  Mussulman  and  Hindu  inhabitants 
of  the  town,  which,  but  for  the  interference  of  the  authorities  on  the 
spot,  would  most  unquestionably  have  ended  in  bloodshed,  if  not  in  a 
partial  insurrection.  The  point  in  dispute  arose  from  a well-known  pre- 
judice of  the  Hindus  against  the  slaughter  of  the  ox,  which  they  hold  to 
be  a sacred  animal.  The  Mussulmans,  on  the  other  hand,  wished  to  eat 
beef,  as  it  was  cheaper  than  either  mutton  or  goat ; and  though  they 
formed  only  a small  minority  of  the  population,  they  seemed  determined 
now  at  length  to  get  their  way.  Year  after  year  they  had  begged  for 
permission  to  kill  the  forbidden  animal  within  the  walls,  or  even  at  any 
reasonable  distance  outside.  But  it  had  all  been  in  vain,  for  the  Hindus 
vowed  that  they  would  have  recourse  to  force  if  their  religious  scruples 
were  disregarded,  and  so  the  Mussulmans  remained  dissatisfied  and  op- 
pressed. 

At  last  the  leading  members  of  the  Mussulman  population  brought  me 
one  day,  when  I was  in  camp,  a fresh  entreaty  worded  in  somewhat  the 
following  manner  : ‘ Hail,  cherisher  of  the  poor!  Be  it  known  unto  your 
enlightened  excellency,  that  for  many  years  the  Hindus  of  this  town 
have,  by  their  lying  and  deceitful  representations  to  the  highest  authori- 
ties, prevented  the  Mussulmans  from  killing  cattle,  under  the  plea  that 
those  animals  are  sacred.  Our  lords,  the  English,  have  hitherto  made 
it  their  rule  to  prevent  one  class  of  their  subjects  from  tyrannising  over 
another,  and  have  dealt  out  impartial  justice  to  all,  making  no  distinc- 
tion between  caste,  creed,  colour,  or  race.  Indeed,  such  is  the  protec- 
tion which  all  enjoy,  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  wolf  and  the  lamb 
drink  from  the  same  ghaut.  What,  then,  have  we  oppressed  creatures 
Vol.  I.— 6 


82 


• LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


clone,  that  we  arc  denied  the  benefits  which  all  others  enjoy  ? Trusting 
that  you  will  take  our  grievous  case  into  speedy  consideration,  and  issue 
an  order  enabling  us  to  eat  beef,  we  pray  that  on  you  the  sun  of  pros- 
perity may  ever  shine  gloriously.’  Such  was  the  petition  which  on  that 
day  was  read  out  in  open  court  before  several  hundreds  of  Hindus  and 
Mussulmans.  Everyone  around  could  see  and  hear  all  that  was  going 
on,  as  the  canvas  walls  of  the  tent  were  taken  down  on  three  sides. 

While  the  petition  was  being  read,  the  audience  preserved  a respect- 
ful silence;  the  Mussulmans  stood  anxiously  expecting  my  decision, 
and  I observed  the  Hindus  furtively  glancing  at  my  countenance  to  read, 
if  possible,  therein,  the  order  about  to  be  issued.  I may  here  remark 
that  no  people  in  the  world  are  more  observant  of  character,  or  more 
quick  or  able  judges  of  it  than  those  of  Hindustan.  They  seem  by  a 
kind  of  intuition  to  understand  every  movement  and  every  gesture.  Nor 
is  this  surprising.  Subject  for  so  many  centuries  to  rulers  whose  will  is 
law,  the  ability  to  comprehend  the  character  and  anticipate  the  thoughts 
of  their  masters  has  become  a necessary  part  of  their  education. 

I felt  that  both  law  and  equity  were  on  the  side  of  the  Mussulmans, 
but  seeing  how  strong  was  the  feeling  of  opposition  among  the  Hindus, 
and  what  an  infringement  of  a long-standing  custom  it  would  be,  I ad- 
vised them  to  make  a formal  application  to  the  Commissioner,  as  super- 
intendent of  police,  who  forthwith  sent  an  order  permitting  the  slaughter 
of  cattle.  I fixed  upon  a spot  for  this  operation  about  three-quarters  of 
a mile  from  the  town,  hoping  thus  to  soften  the  blow  to  the  Hindus. 
But  their  rage  and  indignation  knew  no  bounds,  and  I was  continually 
beset  wherever  I moved  with  petitioners.  Finding  me  inexorable  they 
returned  to  their  homes,  to  deliberate  with  their  friends.  They  waited 
in  ominous  peace  until  the  festival  of  the  Mohurram,  six  weeks  later, 
came  round,  then  suddenly  rose  and  attacked  the  Mussulman  procession 
with  all  manner  of  weapons,  bricks,  stones,  and  even  dead  pigs  and 
dogs,  animals  to  which  ‘ the  faithful  ’ have  the  greatest  abhorrence. 

The  confusion  and  tumult  which  ensued  were  tremendous,  and  a des- 
perate affray  and  loss  of  life  would  have  been  the  result,  had  not  the 
tahsildar,  a native  of  much  force  of  character  and  self-won  influence  in 
the  place,  hastily  summoned  the  police  to  the  spot,  and  put  himself, 
though  a Hindu  and  a Brahmin,  at  the  head  of  the  Mussulman  proces- 
sion, and  conducted  it  in  safety  through  the  town.  The  parties  sepa- 
rated, mutually  breathing  vengeance  against  each  other  ; the  Muslims 
swearing  by  their  fathers’  graves  that  they  would  wash  out  the  insult  in 
the  blood  of  every  Hindu  in  the  town,  even  if  they  died  to  a man  the 
martyr’s  death. 

The  tahsildar  was  thankful  for  his  success  so  far,  but  felt  that  the 
presence  of  the  magistrate  alone  could  arrest  further  mischief,  and  ac- 
cordingly sent  special  messengers  for  me  to  the  place  where  business 
had  called  me.  I was  in  camp  forty  miles  off,  in  a straight  line,  but  with 
a range  of  steep  and  pathless  hills  between,  necessitating  a circuitous 
route  some  twenty  miles  longer ; so  the  information  did  not  reach  me 


1 837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


83 


till  about  noon  the  following  day.  Here  was  a pleasant  communication 
for  me  ; the  hot  wind  was  blowing  a perfect  simoom,  and  it  required  no 
small  spirit  of  adventure  at  such  a season  to  face  the  heat  and  sand  over 
that  wild  country.  Something,  however,  was  to  be  done,  and  that 
quickly  ; so,  after  taking  ten  minutes  to  consider,  I summoned  some  of 
the  neighbouring  villagers,  and  asked  if  they  knew  the  direct  paths  over 
the  hills,  and  whether  they  would  engage  to  conduct  me  across.  They 
replied  that  they  knew  the  way  well  enough,  but  that  it  was  quite  im- 
practicable for  any  but  men  on  foot,  or  for  goats.  * Never  mind,’  1 
replied,  ‘ I can  go  and  you  can  show  me  the  way.’  When  a Sahib  says 
he  will  do  a thing,  a native  is  too  polite  to  oppose  it,  and  acquiesces. 
The  servants  were  at  once  sent  forward  with  some  clothes  to  push  on  as 
best  they  could  ; the  others  with  the  camp  and  baggage  were  to  follow 
later  ; while  a guide  started  at  once  to  wait  at  the  base  of  the  hill  till  the 
heat  of  the  day  had  sufficiently  subsided  for  me  to  venture  across  the 
plain. 

At  three  p.m.  I mounted  my  best  Arab,  and  with  one  mounted  orderly 
started  for  the  hill,  at  the  foot  of  which  I found  the  guide  waiting.  We 
dismounted,  and  led  our  horses  up  the  steep  ascent.  Before  wejiad 
gone  far  the  orderly’s  horse  fell ; we  left  him  to  his  fate,  as  there  was  no 
time  for  delay.  The  path  now  became  more  and  more  precipitous.  In 
places  it  seemed  all  but  impassable ; and  had  there  been  room  to  turn 
my  horse,  I felt  almost  inclined  to  give  it  up  and  go  back.  Yet  wc 
pushed  on  and  on  till  we  reached  the  top.  If  it  was  a labor  for  my  poor 
horse  to  scramble  up,  the  difficulty  and  danger  of  descending  the  other 
side  was  much  greater  ; any  slip  would  hurl  him  headlong  down  ; but 
by  dint  of  care,  what  with  sliding  and  slipping  on  his  haunches,  we  at 
last  reached  the  bottom  without  serious  damage.  It  was  six  o’clock  by 
the  time  the  descent  was  accomplished,  so  that  there  was  little  more 
than  an  hour  of  daylight  remaining,  with  more  than  thirty  miles  of  sandy 
trackless  plain  intersected  by  ravines  to  traverse,  and  nothing  but  a 
western  star  and  information  from  an  occasional  village  to  guide  me. 
But,  trusting  to  the  speed  and  endurance  of  my  gallant  steed,  well  tried 
in  many  a hard  day’s  run  before,  I dismissed  the  guide  and  set  off  at  a 
hard  gallop. 

Towards  ten  o’clock  at  night  I discerned  the  thousand  little  twinkling 
lamps  which  light  an  Indian  city,  and  riding  into  the  town  found  the 
people  all  on  the  alert,  and  was  soon  recognised,  my  horse  and  myself 
being  well  known  there.  * Larens  sahib  is  come,’  was  repeated  from 
mouth  to  mouth  with  much  surprise,  as  they  knew  I was  at  Rewari  the 
day  before.  My  sudden  appearance  scared  them,  and  they  slunk  away 
to  their  houses.  After  parading  the  streets  for  a short  time  till  they  were 
quiet,  I went  to  the  tahsildar  and  heard  from  him  of  the  commotion 
having  increased  throughout  that  day.  I sent  messengers  to  collect  all 
the  police  from  the  neighbourhood,  and  then  repaired  to  the  somewhat 
rough  quarters  of  a hostelry  (serai)  just  outside  the  walls.  Here  I luckily 
found  an  officer  belonging  to  the  political  department,  Captain  R , 


84 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


who,  being  in  ill  health,  was  glad  to  recruit  in  rather  more  comfort  than 
in  tents ; for  I had  repaired  and  slightly  furnished  two  or  three  rooms  in 
thq  serai,  in  case  of  an  emergency  like  the  present.  After  seeing  my 
horse  well  rubbed  down  and  fed  I retired  to  rest.  In  the  morning  I 
stationed  police  at  the  gates,  at  the  market-place,  and  at  other  central 
spots,  that  they  might  be  ready  in  case  the  Hindus  should  have  recourse 
to  arms,  and  there  they  remained  for  three  weeks. 

Thus  the  danger  passed  by,  for  the  Mussulmans  with  their  more  ac- 
tive, warlike  habits,  backed  by  the  European  forces,  were  too  strong  for 
their  opponents  ; so,  after  receiving  a decided  rebuff  to  a fresh  petition 
from  me,  the  Hindus  tried  a wholly  new  method.  By  a preconcerted 
and  simultaneous  movement  they  shut  up  all  the  shops,  suspended  trade 
and  business  of  every  description,  and  declared  that  until  the  obnoxious 
order  was  rescinded,  they  would  neither  buy  nor  sell,  nor  indeed  hold 
any  communication  with  the  opposite  party. 

This  plan  of  passive  resistance  was  by  far  the  most  effectual  they  could 
have  adopted.  It  completely  paralysed  their  enemies,  and  alarmed  the 
magistrate  more  than  he  would  have  liked  to  own  ; for  they  had  com- 
plete control  of  the  supplies,  being  the  wholesale  as  well  as  retail  dealers 
of  tl^e  town.  The  next  morning,  when  not  only  the  Mussulmans  but  the 
lower  orders  of  Hindus  came  as  usual  to  purchase  the  day’s  provisions, 
they  found  all  the  shops  closed.  Living  from  hand  to  mouth  as  they  do, 
they  were  in  blank  despair,  and,  adjourning  to  my  house,  they  implored 
my  leave  to  break  open  the  granaries  and  help  themselves,  if  I could 
not  compel  the  traders  to  open  their  shops.  I replied  that  the  traders 
had  done  nothing  contrary  to  law,  and  that  I had  no  power  to  compel 
them  in  any  way.  I felt  also  that  it  would  lead  to  general  anarchy  and 
plunder  if  I did  not  restrain  them  from  attacking  the  granaries.  Yet 
food  they  must  have,  and  that  at  once. 

A plan  occurred  to  me  which  would  give  me  time  to  reason  with  the 
Hindus,  and  possibly  bring  them  to  a better  state  of  mind.  I collected 
many  waggon-loads  of  grain  from  the  country  round,  at  my  own  risk, 
trusting  that  the  Government  would  refund  me  when  the  peril  was  made 
known  to  them.  This  grain  I stored,  and  gave  out  by  letters  of  credit 
to  retail  dealers,  whom  I chose  myself  and  placed  in  the  streets.  In 
this  way  all  the  slight  wants  of  an  Asiatic  were  supplied,  and  so  careful 
was  the  organisation  of  the  whole  thing,  that  there  was  no  ultimate  loss 
to  the  Government.  Meanwhile  I published  proclamations  warning  the 
Hindus  against  blind  allegiance  to  their  priests,  and  telling  them  that 
any  act  of  violence  would  meet  with  prompt  retribution.  This  I was 
frequently  able  to  do  in  isolated  cases,  as  combination  was  now  impos- 
sible for  them.  They  first  sent  petitions  to  the  Commissioner,  and  then 
to  the  seat  of  government  itself  in  the  hills,  complaining  both  of  me, 
their  magistrate,  and  the  tahsildar.  These  were  in  due  time  returned  to 
me  for  explanation.  I did  not  think  it  necessary  to  answer  their  charges 
against  myself,  but  successfully  vindicated  the  tahsildar. 

For  twenty-two  days  the  Hindu  traders  held  out,  till  I was  much  worn 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


85 


and  harassed  with  the  constant  work  of  inspection,  repression,  and 
writing  answers  to  complaints.  At  last  the  poorer  Hindus  found  that 
they  were  injuring  themselves  as  well  as  the  Mussulmans  ; gradually  a 
shop  was  opened  here  and  there,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  twenty- 
second  day,  a crowd  of  Hindus  came  to  me  in  a humble  frame  of  mind, 
owning  that  they  had  been  led  away  by  their  priests,  begging  for  par- 
don, and  solemnly  promising  never  to  repeat  the  offence,  and  offering 
to  open  their  shops  at  once.  I agreed  to  this,  and  thus  a combination 
which  had  threatened  to  produce  a general  uproar  was  quietly  and 
peaceably  put  down.  I was  able  to  satisfy  the  inquiries  of  Government 
as  to  my  somewhat  independent  action  in  the  matter,  and  so  to  estab- 
lish the  conduct  of  the  tahsildar  that  he  received  special  thanks  for  all 
' he  had  done.  He  did  not,  however,  long  survive  to  enjoy  his  recovered 
credit.  A few  months  afterwards  he  died  from  a sudden  attack  of 
cholera. 

From  the  southern  division  of  the  Delhi  district,  which  had 
been  spared,  as  I have  already  shown,  the  full  fury  of  the  fam- 
ine which  had  visited  the  North-West,  John  Lawrence  was 
called  off  unexpectedly  to  a district  in  which  it  had  done  its 
worst.  He  was  specially  selected,  in  November,  1838,  for  the 
post  of  ‘ settlement  officer’  at  Etawa  by  Robert  Mertins  Bird,  a 
man  whose  name  is  little  known  to  Englishmen  generally,  and 
who,  it  is  to  be  feared,  is,  at  this  distance  of  time,  little  remem- 
bered even  among  the  23,000,000  inhabitants  of  the  North-West 
Provinces  whom  he  did  so  much  to  save  from  miser)'  and  ruin. 
But  his  services  are  not  to  be  measured  by  the  little  noise  they 
made  in  the  world,  or  by  the  little  or  no  reward  which  they  re- 
ceived. After  serving  for  twenty  years  of  his  life  as  a judge, 
he  suddenly  joined  the  Revenue  Department,  a department 
which  has  proved  to  so  many  the  study  and  despair  of  a life- 
time. He  was  soon  recognised  as  the  chief  living  authority  on 
the  subject,  and  he  managed,  during  the  next  thirteen  years,  to 
plan  and  to  carry  through  a measure  which  was  as  complicated 
and  difficult  as  it  was  vast  and  complete,  the  survey  and  settle- 
ment of  the  whole  of  the  North-West  Provinces.  On  returning 
to  England,  after  thirty-three  years’  service,  amidst  the  warm 
appreciation  of  all  who  knew  what  he  had  done,  and  how  he 
had  done  it,  he  lived  quite  unnoticed,  and  passed  to  his  grave 
without  a single  external  mark  of  distinction. 

Such  is  the  lot — the  lot  borne  uncomplainingly  and  even  grate- 
fully— of  many  of  our  best  Indian  administrators.  One  here, 
and  one  there,  rise  to  fame  and  honour,  but  the  rest  live  a life 
of  unceasing  toil,  wield  a power  which,  within  its  sphere,  is  such 


86 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


as  few  European  sovereigns  wield,  and  with  an  absolute  devo- 
tion to  the  good  of  their  subjects  such  as  few  European  sover- 
eigns show.  They  have  to  be  separated  from. their  children 
during  the  most  impressible  period  of  their  life,  and  the  wife  is 
often  obliged  to  prefer  the  claims  of  the  children  to  those  of  her 
husband.  India  can  thus  be  no  longer,  in  any  true  sense  of  the 
word,  a home  to  them,  and  when  at  length  they  return  to  Eng- 
land, they  do  so,  too  often,  broken  in  health,  find  themselves 
unnoticed  and  unknown,  strangers  even  to  their  own  children, 
and  settle  down  from  a position  of  semi-regal  influence  into, 
say,  a semi-detached  villa,  visited  by  few  save  some  half-dozen 
old  civilians  like  themselves,  who  have  borne  with  them  the  bur- 
den and  heat  of  the  Indian  sun,  and  now  drop  in  from  time  to 
time  to  talk  over  old  days  and  interests  which  are  all  in  all  to 
them,  but  of  which  the  outside  world  knows  nothing  at  all. 
Verily  they  have  their  reward  ; but  it  is  a reward  such  as  few 
outsiders  can  understand  or  appreciate. 

To  have  been  selected  by  Robert  Bird  as  a helper  in  the  great 
work  in  which  he  was  engaged  was  looked  upon,  ever  after- 
wards, as  a feather  in  the  cap  even  of  those  who,  from  luck  or 
otherwisej  were  destined  soon  to  eclipse  the  fame  of  their  old 
patron.  John  Lawrence,  afterwards  a first-rate  revenue  author- 
ity himself,  was  reluctant  to  leave  his  harder  and  therefore,  as 
he  deemed  it,  pleasanter  work  at  Gorgaon,  but  he  felt  that  a 
call  by  Robert  Bird  was  a call  to  be  obeyed.  He  learned  in  his 
school,  fully  sympathised  with  his  noble  motives,  and  to  a great 
extent  adopted  his  views.  It  is  doubly  incumbent,  therefore, 
on  the  biographer  of  John  Lawrence  to  pay  a warm,  if  only  a 
humble  and  a passing  tribute,  to  a man  to  whom  he  owed  so  much 
and  of  whom  his  countrymen  know  so  little. 

Sir  John  Kaye  tells  a story  of  a Frenchman,  Victor  Jacque- 
mont,  who,  after  the  manner  of  the  more  frivolous  part  of  his 
nation,  asked  Ilolt  Mackenzie,  one  of  the  highest  revenue  au- 
thorities in  India,  to  explain  to  him  in  a five  minutes’  conversa- 
tion the  various  systems  of  land  revenue  obtaining  in  different 
parts  of  the  country ! The  experienced  civilian  replied  that  he 
had  been  for  twenty  years  endeavouring  to  understand  the  sub- 
ject, and  had  not  mastered  it  yet.  A warning  taken  to  heart  by 
Sir  John  Kaye  may  well  serve  to  order  an  ordinary  Englishman 
clean  off  the  ground  on  which  with  heedless  steps  he  may  have 
been  preparing  to  venture.  But  my  object  is  a simpler  and 
humbler  one.  It  is  not  to  explain  the  inexplicable,  or  express 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


87 


the  inexpressible,  but  merely  to  show  what  was  the  general  na- 
ture of  the  evils  from  which  Bird  and  his  .associates  were  en- 
deavouring to  save  the  country,  and  to  indicate  in  very  general 
terms  the  character  of  that  ‘ settlement  ’ of  the  North-West  Pro- 
vinces by  Bird,  which  afterwards  had  so  material  an  influence 
on  the  settlement  of  the  Punjab  by  the  Lawrences. 

When,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  con- 
quests of  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  and  Lord  Lake  had  laid  so  large 
a part  of  Northern  India  at  our  feet,  the  first  question  that 
pressed  for  decision  was  the  method  in  which  the  cost  of  its 
administration  could  best  be  met.  The  theory  in  all  Eastern 
states  is  that  a certain  proportion — very  variable  in  amount — 
of  the  produce  of  the  land  belongs  of  right  to  the  Government, 
and  in  India  the  theory  is  supplemented  by  the  clear  under- 
standing that  if  the  owner  pays  that  proportion  to  the  Govern- 
ment he  cannot  be  disturbed  in  possession.  But  with  whom 
was  the  agreement  for  the  payment  of  the  state  dues  to  be 
made?  In  other  words,  who  were  the  rightful  owners?  In 
Bengal,  at  all  events,  we  had  set  ourselves  an  example  for  all 
future  time  of  how  not  to  do  it.  For,  under  the  auspices  of 
Lord  Cornwallis,  a ‘permanent  settlement’  of  the  land  revenue 
had  been  made,  very  possibly  with  the  best  motives,  but  with 
the  worst  results — at  the  cost,  that  is,  of  ‘permanent’  injury 
alike  to  the  Government  and  to  the  best  portion  of  its  subjects. 
It  had  been  made  without  sufficient  inquiry  as  to  who  the  true 
proprietors  were,  or  what  the  future  capabilities  of  the  soil 
might  be.  It  seemed  more  natural,  and  was  certainly  more 
easy,  for  Government  to  make  an  agreement  with  the  one  big 
man  who  made  himself  out  to  be  the  richest  and  most  in- 
fluential inhabitant,  than  with  a large  number  of  smaller  men  ; 
with  one  zemindar,  as  he  was  called  in  Bengal,  rather  than  with 
a hundred  ryots  or  their  representatives.  And,  as  the  result  of 
the  ‘permanent  settlement,’  these  zemindars  woke  up  one 
morning  and  found  themselves  transformed  by  us  into  land- 
owners — superseding,  that  is,  the  true  hereditary  proprietors, 
and  reducing  them  to  the  rank  of  tenants-at-will,  or  little  better, 
and  often  at  exorbitant  rents.  These  very  zemindars,  however, 
were,  owing  to  the  introduction  of  the  ‘law  of  sale,’  liable,  in 
their  turn,  to  be  evicted  by  other  capitalists  or  speculators  less 
scrupulous  even  than  themselves. 

These  were  mistakes,  which  it  might  have  been  supposed 
that,  taught  by  experience,  we  could  easily  avoid,  in  the  revenue 


88 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


arrangements  for  the  North-West.  We  only  succeeded,  how- 
ever, in  very  partially  avoiding  them.  We  had  become  con- 
scious of  our  ignorance  of  the  conditions  under  which  alone  a 
permanent  settlement  might  advantageously  be  thought  of,  and 
so  had  taken  the  initial  step  towards  knowledge.  Settlements 
were  accordingly  now  made,  not  in  perpetuity,  but  only  for  a 
short  term  of  years,  and  not  till  after  some  inquiry  had  been 
made  as  to  who  the  true  owners  were.  But  unfortunately  the 
men  we  pitched  upon  as  the  proper  landowners  turned  out 
again,  in  many  cases,  to  be  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  ‘ sale 
law,’  as  though  it  had  not  done  injustice  enough  in  Bengal,  was 
transported  into  the  North-West,  and  the  assessments  made 
were  extortionately  high,  often  amounting  to  a half  of  the  gross 
produce.  In  vain  did  the  proprietors  rush  to  the  local  courts 
for  protection.  Protection  the  judges  of  the  local  courts  could 
not  give,  bound  down  as  they  were  by  strict  legal  rules  and 
ignorant  of  the  history  and  peculiarities  of  the  people.  What 
scanty  means  of  subsistence  remained  to  the  true  proprietor, 
the  meshes  of  the  law  carried  off.  Confusion  became  worse 
confounded.  Estates  were  often  put  up  for  sale  in  the  ignorance 
of  the  owner,  and  bought  at  merely  nominal  prices  by  intrigu- 
ing native  officers.  And  then,  when  the  mischief  had  been  half 
done,  we  tried  to  undo  it.  Rhadamanthus-like,  though  with 
anything  but  rhadamanthine  motives,  we  punished  first,  and 
discovered  what  the  offence  was,  or  was  not,  afterwards. 

Castigatque  auditque  dolos  subigitque  fateri. 

In  1822  Holt  Mackenzie  introduced  what  has  been  justly 
called  the  ‘ Magna  Charta  of  the  village  communities  in  India,’ 
all  the  more  justly,  perhaps,  that,  like  Magna  Charta,  its  pro- 
visions were  not  at  once  carried  out  into  practice,  and  that, 
like  Magna  Charta  also,  it  needed  to  be  renewed  and  devel- 
oped in  later  times.  From  various  causes,  which  need  not  be 
mentioned  here,  the  revision  of  the  settlement,  as  arranged  by 
him,  made  little  progress  for  some  ten  years,  but  at  last,  in 
1833,  under  the  Governor-Generalship  of  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck,  the  man  for  the  work  was  found  in  Robert  Bird.  He 
threw  inexhaustible  energy  and  fire  into  a task  for  which  he 
had  been  long  prepared,  alike  by  an  extensive  knowledge  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  North-West  Provinces,  and  by  a special, 
though  quite  unofficial,  study  of  the  subject.  He  avoided  most 
of  the  mistakes  which  had  crippled  the  execution  of  his  prede- 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


89 


cessor’s  project,  and  suggested  a simple  method  for  determining, 
cheaply  and  at  once,  the  interminable  disputes  as  to  ownership 
and  boundaries  by  the  summoning  of  a village  jury  on  the  spot 
under  the  supervision  of  the  Commissioner.  Allowed  to  choose 
his  own  men,  he  selected  the  very  best  for  the  purpose  that  could 
be  found  in  the  whole  of  India,  whether  from  the  civil  service 
or  the  army.  Witness  it  the  names  of  Thomason,  Reade,  and 
Mansel,  of  Edmondstone,  and  of  James  Abbott,  of  Henry  and 
of  John  Lawrence.  In  a few  years  every  village  over  an  area  of 
72,000  square  miles  was  measured,  every  field  mapped,  the  nature 
of  the  so{l  recorded,  and  the  assessment  fixed  at  a moderate  rate 
for  a period  of  some  twenty  years.1  Such  was  the  great  work  in 
which  John  Lawrence  was  now  called  to  bear  a part. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  a work  so  gigantic  could  be 
carried  through  without  man)’-  mistakes  and  without  involv- 
ing, in  special  cases,  considerable  injustice.  A change  of  gov- 
ernment always  implies  injustice.  In  Eastern  countries  it  has 
too  often  implied  a total  overthrow  of  all  existing  rights.  And, 
apart  from  this,  Eastern  notions  are  in  many  ways  so  essen- 
tially different  from  Western,  that  what  is  the  highest  right  in 
our  eyes  may  well  seem  the  highest  wrong  in  theirs.  Now  the 
governing  principle  of  the  new  settlement  was,  that  the  true 
proprietors  were  the  village  cultivators,  and  that  any  middle- 
men who  came  between  them  and  the  Government,  as  contract- 
ors for  the  revenue,  were  interlopers,  drones  who  consumed 
the  honey  in  a hive  which  was  not  too  well  stocked  with  it. 
No  one  will  deny  that  there  was  much  truth  in  this  ; few,  on 
the  other  hand,  will  now  be  found  to  say — not  even  the  most 
thorough-going  of  the  settlement  officers  of  this  time  who  still 
survive — that  it  was  the  whole  truth.  The  hereditary  revenue 
contractors,  talukdars  as  they  were  called,  in  the  North-West, 
zemindars  as  they  were  called  in  Bengal,  were  not  necessarily 
proprietors  as  well.  They  might,  or  might  not,  be  owners  in 
part  or  the  whole  of  the  district  for  which  they  contracted. 
But  though  the  two  things  were  quite  independent  of  each 
other,  it  is  important  to  note  here  that  each  involved  in  the 
Eastern  mind  notions  of  property. 

Property  in  land  is,  all  the  world  over,  the  most  cherished 
and  the  most  sacred  kind  of  property,  but  it  is  not  the  only 


1 See  the  whole  subject  discussed  in  Raikes’  North-  West  Provinces  of  India,  chap, 
ii. , and  Kaye's  Sepoy  War,  vol.  i.  chap.  iv. 


90 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


kind.  To  disturb  an  arrangement  affecting  property  which 
has  gone  on  for  many  years,  perhaps  for  generations,  is  a very- 
strong  step,  as  all  history — the  history  of  the  Agrarian  Laws 
and  the  reforms  of  the  Gracchi  at  Rome  above  all — bears  wit- 
ness. At  Rome  the  ‘public  land’  was  undoubtedly  in  law  and 
in  fact  the  property  of  the  state,  which  might  at  any  time 
resume,  for  purposes  of  its  own,  what,  for  purposes  of  its  own, 
it  had  granted  out.  The  word  used  in  Roman  law  for  the  en- 
joyment of  the  ‘public  land’  by-  a private  individual  (possessio) 
was  a word  which  carefully  excluded  the  notion  of  ownership 
and  conveyed  only  that  of  occupation.  Still,  the  state  had  so 
long  forborne  to  exercise  its  right  of  resumption  that  the  idea 
of  property  had  stealthily  crept  in.  These  lands  had  passed  bv 
will  from  one  generation  to  another ; they  had  been  bought  and 
sold  ; they  had  been  fenced  and  drained  ; farm-buildings  had 
been  erected  upon  them  ; their  enjoyment  was  consecrated  by 
most  of  the  ties  and  obligations  which  bind  the  proprietor  to 
his  landed  property.  To  disturb,  as  the  Gracchi  proposed  to  do, 
an  arrangement  which  appeared  so  stable  and  so  immemorial 
was,  disguise  it  as  we  may,  a revolution.  Righteous  and  im- 
peratively necessary  it  might  be,  but  it  was  a revolution  still. 

In  the  North-West  Provinces  it  was  certainty  high  time  to 
make  a settlement  of  some  kind,  for  anything  would  be  better 
than  the  uncertainty  and  the  want  of  method  which  had  pre- 
vailed for  upwards  of  a quarter  of  a century.  Now,  in  every 
elaborate  scheme  there  must  be  some  one  or  more  governing 
principles,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  governing  principle  selected 
by  Robert  Bird  was  as  near  the  truth  as  any  general  principle 
could  be,  and,  whatever  its  shortcomings,  was  more  likely  to 
secure  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  than  any 
other.  But  it  is  said  1 to  have  been  carried  out  by  some  of  the 
officers  concerned  too  sweepingty  and  with  too  little  consider- 
ation. They  looked  upon  every  talukdar  as  if  he  had  necessarily- 
gained  his  position  by  force  or  fraud.  In  their  opinion,  there- 
fore, he  was  lucky  enough  if  he  got  any  money  compensation 
for  his  loss  of  territorial  influence  ; he  deserved  rather  to  be 
made  to  disgorge  what  he  and  his  family  had  been  wrongfully 
devouring  during  a long  course  of  years. 

It  can  be  easily  understood  how  good  men  might  take  oppo- 


1 E.g.  by  Kaye,  vol.  i.  p.  160.  Sir  John  Lawrence,  in  many  letters  which  I find 
among  his  papers,  is  disposed  to  deny  the  accuracy  of  this  assertion. 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


91 


site  views  on  such  a subject  as  this,  and  in  the  settlement  of 
the  North-West  both  sides  had  able  representatives,  though  the 
reforming  party  were  in  the  majority.  On  the  side  of  the 
talukdars  was  Robertson  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North- 
West,  Robert  C.  Hamilton,  Commissioner  of  Agra,  and,  in  a 
subordinate  capacity,  Henry  Lawrence,  a host  in  himself,  who 
had  lately  obtained  an  appointment  in  the  survey  on  the  rec- 
ommendation of  his  brother  George.  On  the  side  of  the  village 
communities  was  the  still  higher  authority  of  the  Revenue  Board, 
with  Robert  Bird  at  its  head,  Thomason  the  future  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  North-West,  and  most  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  settlement  officers,  reinforced  now  by  another  Lawrence, 
who  was  also  a host  in  himself — John  Lawrence.  And,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  more  famous  Board  which  administered  the 
Punjab  later  on,  it  may  be  hoped  that  where  both  sides  were  so 
ably  represented  something  like  an  equilibrium  was  established, 
and  that  the  injustice  which  would  have  been  done  by  either  par- 
ty, if  it  had  had  its  own  way  entirely,  was  reduced  to  a mini- 
mum by  the  keen  criticism  which  each  proposition  received 
from  those  who  opposed  it. 

The  district  of  Etawa,  which  fell  to  John  Lawrence’s  charge, 
lay  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Jumna  and  adjoined  Agra  and  Myn- 
poorie.  It  was  in  no  way  a delectable  place,  as  the  following 
description  will  show.  * In  no  part  of  India,’  says  a well-known 
Anglo-Indian  Book  of  Reference,  ‘ do  hot  winds  blow  with 
greater  fury'.  They  commence  in  March  and  rage  throughout 
the  whole  of  April  and  of  May'.  The  wind  usually  rises  about 
eight  a.m.  and  subsides  at  sunset  ; though  it  sometimes  blows 
at  night  as  well.  Every'  article  of  furniture  is  burning  to  the 
touch  ; the  hardest  wood,  if  not  well  covered  with  damp  blank- 
ets, will  split  with  a report  like  that  of  a pistol  ; and  linen  taken 
from  a press  is  as  if  just  removed  from  the  kitchen  fire.  But, 
terrible  as  are  the  days,  the  nights  are  infinitely  worse  : each 
apartment  becomes  heated  to  excess,  and  can  only'  be  compared 
to  an  oven.  The  hot  winds  are  succeeded  by  the  monsoon,  or 
periodical  rains,  the  transition  being  marked  by'  a furious  tor- 
nado. At  midday',  darkness  as  of  night  sets  in,  caused  by  the 
dense  clouds  of  dust ; and  so  loud  is  the  roar  of  the  storm,  that 
incessant  peals  of  thunder  are  heard  only  at  rare  intervals,  whilst 
the  flashes  of  forked  lightning  seldom  pierce  the  gloom.  At 
last  the  rain  descends  in  torrents,  floods  the  country,  and  re- 
freshes, for  a while,  the  animal  and  vegetable  world.’ 


92 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


Etawa  had  suffered  dreadfully  from  the  drought,  and  was 
still  feeling  its  effects  when,  in  November,  1838,  John  Lawrence 
arrived  as  its  ‘settlement  officer.’  The  land  revenue  had,  of 
course,  completely  broken  down,  and  the  land  tenures  were  in 
great  disorder.  Here  John  Lawrence  saw  for  the  first  time, 
with  his  own  eyes,  the  horrors  of  an  Indian  famine  ; here  by 
daily  contact  with  the  starving  people,  he  learned  to  sympathise 
with  their  sufferings  in  their  full  intensity  ; and  here,  once 
more,  he  gathered  together  and  treasured  up  for  future  use 
those  maxims  which  he  was  afterwards  to  apply  in  so  careful 
and  yet  so  magnificent  a manner,  in  his  administration  of  the 
Punjab — the  duty  of  a rigid  economy  in  all  the  departments  of 
government  which  admit  of  it,  in  order  that  the  expenditure 
may  be  all  the  more  lavish  on  the  best  and  the  only  means  of 
avoiding  such  terrible  calamities  for  the  future — the  construc- 
tion of  tanks  and  canals,  of  roads  and  bridges. 

The  population  of  India,  it  must  always  be  remembered,  are 
almost  entirely  agricultural  ; their  wealth  consists  of  their  la- 
bour and  their  flocks  alone,  and  in  a year  of  famine  the  value 
of  these  falls  at  once  to  zero.  From  a commercial  people  a 
famine  cuts  off  only  one  out  of  many  sources  of  subsistence  ; 
from  an  agricultural  it  cuts  off  all  at  once.  At  such  times  the 
prices  of  food  for  cattle  range  even  higher  than  those  of  food 
for  man.  In  this  particular  year,  while  corn  rose  to  about  ten, 
hay  and  other  food  for  cattle  rose  to  not  less  than  sixteen  times 
their  usual  value.  A good  cow  could  be  bought  for  a rupee. 
Artificial  irrigation,  in  the  extent  to  which  it  has  now  been  car- 
ried in  India,  ensures,  even  in  the  worst  seasons,  a considerable 
supply  of  grain  ; whereas  the  grass  lands,  which  receive  no  help 
either  from  earth  or  heaven,  are  utterly  scorched  up.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  the  least  tragical  part  of  the  prolonged  tragedy  of  an 
Indian  famine,  that  there  are  often  considerable  stores  of  food 
within  reach  of  the  starving  people  which  they  have  no  means 
of  procuring.  They  see,  but  they  may  not  taste  thereof.  Like 
Tantalus,  they  starve  in  the  midst  of  plenty. 

‘ It  is  owing  to  the  agricultural  character  of  the  population 
and  the  difficult  means  of  communication,’  says  John  Lawrence, 
as  he  looked  back  in  1845  from  his  post  of  Magistrate  and  Col- 
lector of  Delhi  on  what  he  had  witnessed  at  Gorgaon  and 
Etawa  seven  years  before,  ‘that  India  suffers  so  dreadfully  from 
famine,  and  not,  as  has  been  so  unreasonably  supposed,  from 
the  exactions  of  the  English  Government.  The  demands  of 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


93 


Government,  if  not  particularly  moderate  in  themselves,  seem 
moderate  when  compared  with  those  of  the  native  govern- 
ments, and  with  the  little  that,  under  those  governments,  the 
people  get  in  return.  Give  India  good  roads  and  canals,  in- 
crease in  every  way  the  facilities  of  communication,  and  en- 
courage the  employment  of  capital  on  its  resources,  and  then 
more  will  be  done  to  obviate  the  recurrence  of  famines  than  in 
any  other  way  that  can  be  devised.’  So  jnuch  has  been  done 
since  1845  in  the  direction  here  pointea  out  that  John  Law- 
rence’s words  read  now  like  truisms.  But  they  were  not  tru- 
isms then.  And  at  the  moment  at  which  I write  (1880),  when 
all  expenditure  on  public  works  is  stopped,  in  order  that  mil- 
lions of  money,  the  ‘Famine  Fund’  included,  may  be  thrown 
away  amidst  the  barren  rocks  of  Afghanistan,  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  paramount  importance  of  such  considera- 
tions is,  even  at  this  day,  adequately  realised. 

Thousands  of  natives  in  these  two  disastrous  years  (1838-39) 
left  their  homes  in  the  North-West  Provinces  and  wandered 
from  place  to  place  in  the  vain  hope  of  getting  food.  Many 
lay  down  and  died  by  the  roadside,  and  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  John  Lawrence,  as  he  went  for  his  morning  ride,  to 
see  the  bodies  of  those  who  had  perished  in  the  preceding 
night  half-eaten  by  wolves  or  jackals  which,  lured  by  the  scent 
of  human  carrion,  went  prowling  about  the  country  in  packs, 
and  held  a ghastly  revelry  over  the  gaunt  victims  of  the  famine. 
It  was  a remark  often  made  in  his  hearing,  that  the  taste  for 
human  flesh  acquired  by  these  usually  skulking  and  cowardly 
animals  gave  them,  for  years  to  come,  courage  to  invade  the 
haunts  of  men,  and  invested  them  for  the  nonce  with  the  awe- 
inspiring attributes  of  man-eating  or  child-eating  tigers. 

Here  is  one  incident  of  this  time  of  trouble.  It  is  common- 
place enough  in  some  of  its  details,  and  such  as  might  be 
matched  by  the  experience  of  any  English  officer  whose  melan- 
choly fate  it  has  been  to  watch  over  a famine-stricken  district 
and  to  witness  the  tide  of  human  misery  which  he  is  powerless 
to  stop,  and  can  only  hope,  to  some  very  slight  extent,  to  alle- 
viate. It  gives,  however,  such  an  insight  into  the  daily  life  and 
kindly  feelings  of  John  Lawrence  at  this  period,  and  brings 
before  us  so  vividly  so  many  characteristics  of  the  people  of 
India,  that  it  seems  to  me  to  be  well  worth  preserving.  I have 
again  condensed  the  story  as  much  as  possible,  but,  wherever  it 
was  practicable,  have  kept  near  to  John  Lawrence’s  own  words. 


94 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


The  people  of  India  are  essentially  a people  given  to  pil- 
grimages. Jumnotri  and  Gangotri,  situated  in  the  Himalayas, 
at  the  sources  respectively  of  the  Jumna  and  the  Ganges; 
Allahabad,  where  they  unite  ; Benares,  further  down  the  sacred 
stream  ; Juggernauth  in  Cuttack,  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of 
Bengal ; — all  these  sacred  spots  attract  to  themselves  thousands, 
or  even  hundreds  of  thousands,  of  devout  pilgrims  year  by  year  ; 
and,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  so  in  India,  these  religious 
resorts  become  also  marts  of  commerce.  The  Hindu  pilgrim 
often  returns  from  Benares  or  Allahabad  just  as  the  Haji  of 
Central  Asia  or  Africa  often  returns  from  Mecca — rich,  not 
in  the  odour  of  sanctity  alone.  The  sacred  shrine  presents 
at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  the  appearance  of  a huge  fair. 
Booths  are  erected  on  an  extensive  scale,  and  merchandise 
from  all  the  neighbouring  countries  is  exposed  for  sale.  Ghur- 
mukhtesir,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  not  very  far  from  the 
spot  where  it  bursts  out  from  the  hills  into  the  vast  plain,  is  at 
once  a great  resort  of  pilgrims  and  the  best  horse-mart  in  Upper 
India.  Here  John  Lawrence,  with  his  passionate  love  of  the 
animal,  doubtless  made  not  a few  purchases  of  his  favourite 
Arab  or  Kabuli  horses. 

But,  besides  these  great  resorts  of  pilgrims  known  to  all  the 
world,  there  are  many  other  shrines  of  much  less  but  still  of 
considerable  local  celebrity.  Such  a one  there  happened  to  be 
not  half-a-mile  from  John  Lawrence’s  house  ; and  as  the  great 
road  from  the  South-West,  which  led  by  the  shrine,  passed 
close  under  his  windows,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  observing  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  pilgrims.  And  a very  rich  study 
of  Indian  nature — nay,  of  human  nature  at  large — did  they  give 
him.  The  shrine  was  that  of  ‘ Situla,’  or  Small-pox — that  is  to 
say,  of  the  goddess  who  presides  over  and  controls  the  disease 
Avhose  ravages  are  more  fatal  than  those  of  any  other  in  India. 
It  has  been  calculated  that  in  Delhi,  the  most  populous  city  in 
North-Western  India,  two-thirds  of  all  the  children  under  two 
years  of  age  who  die  of  disease  die  of  small-pox.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  so  terrible  a goddess  should  be  resorted  to  by  parents 
from  far  and  near  who  were  anxious  to  save  their  children  from 
so  ldathsome  a death  ? 

Intimately  acquainted  though  John  Lawrence  was  with  the 
natives,  and  living,  as  he  had  done  for  some  time,  within  twenty 
miles  of  the  place,  he  was  wholly  ignorant  even  of  the  existence 
of  this  shrine  till  lie  came  to  live  close  beside  it.  ‘So  true  is  it,’ 


1837-4° 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


95 


he  remarks,  ‘ that  what  is  intensely  interesting  to  the  people 
themselves  is  often  utterly  unknown  to  the  Europeans  who  live 
among  them.’  As  each  mother  presented  her  child  she  offered 
also  a male  lamb,  which  she  entreated  the  goddess  to  accept  as 
a substitute  for  the  more  precious  victim. 

Cor  pro  corde  precor,  pro  fibris  sumite  libras ; 

Hanc  animam  vobis  pro  meliore  damus. 

And  at  the  same  time  to  propitiate  the  attendant  priests,  and 
through  them  the  deity,  she  presented  such  other  offerings,  in 
money  or  in  kind,  as  she  was  able  to  afford.  These  offerings 
were,  however,  devoted  to  the  adornment  neither  of  the  shrine 
nor  of  the  goddess.  Far  from  it.  There  she  stood  in  the 
middle  of  her  temple,  the  same  misshapen  log  of  wood  on  which 
in  all  its  hideous  deformity  the  Brahmins  had  from  time  imme- 
morial been  accustomed  to  pour  oil  and  paint ; and  before  her 
the  people  bowed  and  prayed  in  their  thousands.  Nothing 
could  shake  their  implicit  faith  in  the  power  of  Situla.  If  a 
child  who  had  been  presented  by  its  parents  subsequently  took 
the  small-pox  and  recovered,  or  if  it  escaped  the  disease  alto- 
gether, here  was  an  incontestable  proof  of  her  goddess-ship:  she 
had  heard  their  prayer  and  had  saved  them  from  their  distress. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  the  child  sank  under  the  malady,  it  would 
only  be  still  more  incumbent  on  the  parents  to  revisit  the 
shrine  with  their  next  infant  and  propitiate  the  goddess  with 
even  larger  offerings.  A picture  pathetic  enough  this  ! — the 
earnest  faith,  the  willing  offering,  the  answer  given  or  denied, 
and  in  either  case  the  deepened  faith,  the  redoubled  fervor, 
the  more  abundant  offerings.  Pathetic  enough  ; but  it  is  not 
confined  to  India,  it  is  wide-spread  as  human  nature. 

On  great  occasions  the  concourse  of  people  was  so  large  that 
it  was  found  necessary  to  increase  the  police  force,  to  patrol  the 
country,  and  to  make  arrangements  for  the  protection  of  pil- 
grims, as  well  against  the  plunderers  as  against  themselves.  In 
order  to  secure  the  pfoper  performance  of  these  duties,  John 
Lawrence  often  rode  down  to  the  shrine  in  person,  and  watched 
everything  that  went  on  there,  and  we  can  fancy  the  grim 
humour  with  which,  amongst  these  crowded  pilgrims,  he  played 
something  of  the  part  of  the  Turkish  soldiers  at  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  when  at  the  annual  descent  of  the  sacred  fire,  they 
endeavour  by  the  free  use  of  their  Avhips,  to  keep  the  peace  be- 
tween half-a-dozen  sects  of  Christians. 


96 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


Seated  on  his  horse,  he  watched  the  women,  as,  one  by  one, 
they  anxiously  approached  the  goddess,  with  a child  in  one 
arm,  and  the  scape-goat,  as  it  might  be  called,  in  the  other. 
Never  accustomed  to  conceal  his  thoughts,  he  would  sometimes 
indulge  in  a quiet  and  kindly  smile  at  the  object  of  their  wor- 
ship. ‘ How  is  your  demon  to  day  ? Is  she  propitious  ? How 
many  children  has  she  murdered  this  week  ? ’ — these  were  ques- 
tions he  often  put,  not  to  the  devout  worshippers,  but  to  the  fat 
and  sleek  and  burly  Brahmins  who  were  in  attendance.  These 
old  fellows  never  showed  any  annoyance,  for  they  were  much  too 
prosperous  in  their  trade  to  feel  angry  at  his  jokes.  But  had 
he  himself  at  any  time  fallen  a victim  to  the  malady,  he  would 
doubtless  have  been  held  up  by  them  as  an  awful  example  of 
the  Sahib  who  had  scoffed  at  the  goddess  and  had  felt  her 
power. 

The  loss  of  life  and  property  in  these  pilgrimages  was  very 
great.  The  people  generally  travelled  on  foot,  not  so  much 
from  poverty  as  because  the  pains  and  fatigues  and  dangers  of 
such  a mode  of  travelling  were  considered  to  be  meritorious 
and  likely  to  propitiate  the  deity.  The  rate  of  travelling  was 
necessarily  slow.  There  were  then  in  India  no  public  convey- 
ances of  any  kind,  no  inns,  hardly  even  any  decent  roads.  There 
were,  in  fact,  no  conveniences  for  travelling  beyond,  here  and 
there,  the  bare  walls  of  some  serai,  set  up,  in  times  long  gone 
by,  by  some  Mussulman  ruler,  with  its  open  courtyard,  guarded 
by  a gate  which  was  always  shut  and  barred  at  night,  and  its 
collection  of  cells,  each  furnished  with  a ‘ charpoi,’  or  frame  of 
a bedstead,  some  six  feet  long  and  two  broad,  without  mattress, 
pillow,  or  any  other  furniture.  This  accommodation,  such  as  it 
was,  could  generally  be  procured  for  the  moderate  sum  of  two 
pyce.  Everyone  carried  with  him  his  own  mat,  and  his  own 
brass  vessels  for  drinking  and  washing,  articles  which,  though 
they  were  neither  numerous  nor  heavy,  yet  formed  a considera- 
ble burden  for  a pedestrian  ; and  it  may  well  be  understood 
how  a journey  of  a few  hundred  miles  might  be  the  business  of 
several  months. 

Nor  were  these  discomforts  the  worst  evils  that  beset  the  poor 
pilgrim.  Everyone  used  to  travel  armed,  prepared  to  resist  at- 
tacks on  life  and  property,  though  it  seldom  happened  when 
the  time  came  that  they  had  the  pluck  to  do  so.  Sometimes  a 
whole  party  of  petty  merchants,  or  some  other  peaceful  caste, 
would  allow  themselves  to  be  stopped  and  plundered  by  a few 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


97 


resolute  men  without  making  even  a show  of  resistance.  Their 
credulity  and  blind  confidence  passed  belief.  They  allowed  al- 
most anyone  to  join  their  party,  if  he  professed  to  belong  to 
their  caste  ; and  thus  they  fell  an  easy  prey  to  thugs,  dacoits, 
and  vagabonds  of  every  description.  With  a little  address  and 
civility  these  rascals  contrived  to  insinuate  themselves  into  the 
confidence  of  the  travellers,  learned  all  their  secrets,  the  place 
whither  they  were  going,  and  the  wealth  of  each  member  of  the 
party,  and  then  they  selected  their  victims  with  discretion. 

The  approaches  to  all  the  more  famous  places  of  pilgrimage 
used  to  be  infested  by  characters  of  this  description,  and  hun- 
dreds of  pilgrims  were  robbed  or  murdered,  and  often  left  no 
sign  behind  them.  Poor  travellers,  unable  to  bear  the  expense 
of  applying  to  the  police,  found  it  better  to  put  up  with  their 
losses  and  struggle  on  towards  the  goal  which  they  had  in  view, 
subsisting  by  the  help  of  their  fellow-pilgrims,  or  begging  at 
the  villages  near  the  high  roads.  ‘All  classes,’  remarks  John 
Lawrence,  ‘ are  charitable,  and  particularly  the,  poorer  ones. 
Charity  is  universally  inculcated  by  both  the  Mussulman  and 
the  Hindu  religions,  and  the  kindly  and  amiable  feelings  of  the 
people  cheerfully  respond  to  the  beggar’s  petition.’ 

One  touching  case  of  the  kind  John  Lawrence  came  across  in 
his  wanderings  over  his  district  early  in  1838,  in  the  person  of  a 
pilgrim  who  was  on  his  way  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  goddess 
Situla.  He  had  sent  forward  his  tents  to  a fine  copse  of  ber 
trees,  where  there  was  a splendid  tank  which,  even  in  that  year 
of  drought,  was  filled  with  water.  The  Hindus  were  bathing 
there,  and  John  Lawrence,  in  rambling  through  the  adjoining 
plantation,  came  upon  a lump  which  seemed  to  be  a dead  body, 
but  which,  on  looking  at  it  more  closely,  showed  some  signs  of 
life.  It  was  the  body  of  an  old  man  of  venerable  appearance, 
full  seventy  years  of  age,  in  a most  emaciated  state,  covered  with 
filth  and  dirt,  and  with  scarcely  a rag  to  cover  him.  He  had 
neither  bag  nor  wallet  nor  property  of  any  description,  and  he 
seemed  to  be  in  the  last  stage  of  disease.  John  Lawrence  en- 
deavoured in  vain  to  rouse  his  attention  : his  mind  was  wander- 
ing, he  could  not  speak  distinctly,  and  his  glazed  eye  indicated 
the  near  approach  of  death  unless  immediate  steps  were  taken  to 
stave  it  off.  John  hurried  off  to  his  tent  for  assistance  ; but  his 
servants  hesitated  to  touch  a body — though  they  saw  by  his 
sacred  thread  that  it  was  that  of  a Brahmin — so  begrimed  with 
filth  and  in  so  hopeless  a condition.  At  last  he  prevailed  on 
Vol.  I.— 7 


98 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


them  to  help  him  in  conveying  the  sufferer  to  his  tent,  and  there 
he  tended  him  with  his  own  hands,  placed  him  on  a bed,  and 
gave  him  food.  In  the  course  of  the  day  the  pilgrim  so  far  ral- 
lied as  to  be  able  to  tell  his  story,  and  a very  touching  one  it 
was. 

It  appeared  that  he  had  left  his  home  in  the  south  of  India 
some  thirteen  months  before,  with  his  wife  and  child,  to  visit 
the  shrine  of  the  dread  goddess,  of  whose  very  existence,  as  I 
have  said,  John  Lawrence  had  remained  in  ignorance  till  he 
found  himself  her  next  neighbour. 

On  the  way  they  all  fell  ill,  and  the  boy,  the  prime  object  of  the  toil- 
some pilgrimage,  died  before  he  had  obtained  the  protection  of  the 
goddess.  The  mother  struggled  on  for  a little  while,  and  then  she  too 
died.  The  father,  left  quite  alone  in  the  north  of  India,  where  he 
knew  no  one  and  no  one  knew  him,  determined  to  press  on  to  Lahore, 
which  lay  far  beyond  what  was  then  the  British  frontier — for  there  a 
brother  of  his  had  settled  some  tw'enty  years  previously.  He  had 
already  travelled  some  900  miles  on  foot  in  the  manner  I have  de- 
scribed, and  Lahore  was  still  several  hundred  miles  distant.  Wearied 
and  travel-worn  he  continued  his  journey,  and  had  actually  arrived 
within  two  stages  of  that  city  when  he  was  attacked  by  robbers, 
plundered  of  his  little  remaining  property,  and  wounded.  Here  his 
courage  seemed  to  have  forsaken  him  ; he  could  struggle  on  no  further ; 
he  did  not  attempt  to  accomplish  the  object  for  which  he  had  toiled  so 
far,  but  directly  he  was  able  to  move,  turned  his  face  homewards  with- 
out seeing  his  brother.  Being  a pilgrim,  and  still  more,  a Brahmin,  he 
fared  pretty  well  at  first,  for  he  was  helped  by  the  hospitality  and  alms 
of  the  villagers  on  the  way.  At  last  he  recrossed  the  Sutlej,  and  was 
once  again  in  the  British  provinces.  Here  he  found  the  famine  raging, 
and  now  his  troubles  thickened.  He  had  managed  to  press  on  to  the 
place  where  I found  him,  about  one-third  of  his  way  home,  when  he  was 
attacked  with  dysentery.  He  told  me  he  had  remained  under  the  ber 
tree  where  I found  him  for  fifteen  days,  too  weak  to  crawl  any  further, 
and  that  none  of  the  people  would  take  him  into  their  houses  ; but  that 
now  and  then  some  women  passing  to  and  fro  from  the  village  would 
bring  him  a little  food,  and  fill  his  ‘lotah’  with  water.  During  one  of 
his  fits  of  insensibility  his  few  remaining  things  had  been  carried  off, 
and  for  the  last  two  days  he  had  eaten  nothing,  and,  feeling  himself 
dying,  had  resigned  himself  to  his  fate,  when  it  pleased  ‘Narayan’  to 
send  me  there.  ‘ Now,’  added  the  old  man,  ‘ that  I have  eaten,  I feel 
strong.  I shall  live  to  return  home  and  be  able  to  accomplish  the  mar- 
riage of  my  two  daughters  ; and  this  good  deed  of  yours,  Sahib,  may  yet 
be  the  cause  of  my  house  flourishing.  I may  yet  have  a grandson  to 
perform  the  last  rites  for  me.’ 

The  old  man  av  length  seemed  exhausted,  he  laid  his  head  down  and 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


99 


fell  asleep.  In  half-an-hour  my  servant  came  in  and  said,  ‘ the  old 
Brahmin  is  dead.’  I went  and  looked  at  his  body  : he  appeared  to  have 
died  in  his  sleep,  probably  from  mere  exhaustion,  at  the  very  moment 
when  he  had  gone  to  sleep  with  the  happy  consciousness  that  his  troubles 
were  at  an  end. 

John  Lawrence’s  work  at  Etawa  was,  as  I have  said,  of  a 
much  less  absorbing  kind  than  any  which  he  had  hitherto  un- 
dertaken, and  he  disliked  it  proportionately.  Before  he  could 
get  to  his  proper  duties  it  was  necessary  that  the  whole  country 
should  be  surveyed  in  a scientific  manner,  and  the  boundaries 
of  all  the  villages  determined.  While  this  was  being  done  by 
native  officers,  John  Lawrence  managed  to  find  some  employ- 
ment for  himself  in  giving  temporary  relief,  in  superintending 
the  detailed  field  measurements  on  which  the  revised  settle- 
ments were  to  be  founded,  and  in  hearing  all  disputes  con- 
nected with  proprietary  and  tenant  rights  or  with  village 
boundaries.  Work  of  this  kind  was  not  new  to  him,  for  in  the 
transitional  state  in  which  the  Delhi  district  then  was,  he  had 
managed  to  combine,  both  at  Paniput  and  Gorgaon,  much 
of  the  work  of  a settlement  officer  with  that  of  a collector.  I 
was  fortunate  enough  in  the  case  of  Paniput  to  be  able  to  quote 
the  testimony  of  the  one  man  who  could  speak  from  direct  per- 
sonal experience  of  John  Lawrence’s  work  there.  So,  now,  in 
the  case  of  Etawa,  I am  able  to  give  a few  particulars  of  his 
work  and  doings  which  have  been  communicated  to  me  by  the 
only  Englishman  who  had  any  opportunity  of  observing  them. 

I am  afraid  (writes  Mr.  J.  Cumine  of  Rathray,  Aberdeenshire)  that  I 
am  the  only  person  now  living  who  can  tell  you  anything  of  Lawrence 
during  the  year  1838-39,  in  which  he  and  I lived  in  the  closest  intimacy 
at  Etawa,  he  being  the  settlement  officer,  while  I was  the  magistrate  and 
collector.  It  was  then  a newly  formed  district,  and  houses  being  very 
scarce,  the  one  occupied  by  me  was  the  only  one  available  for  Lawrence 
to  live  in.  We,  of  course,  shared  it  together.  He  did  not  like  the  ap- 
pointment, as  he  had  been  far  more  actively  employed  before  in  various 
parts  of  the  Delhi  territory  ; but  being  specially  selected  by  Robert  Bird, 
who  had  a very  high  opinion  of  him,  he  accepted  it.  The  initial  busi- 
ness of  a settlement  imposes  little  work  upon  the  officer  in  charge,  and 
Lawrence  fretted  under  the  want  of  it. 

I may  here  remark  that,  in  a letter  which  has  come  into  my 
hands,  written  by  Lawrence  to  this  same  friend  from  Lahore  in 
1846,  after  describing  the  various  places  in  which  he  had  taken 


IOO 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


temporary  work  since  his  return  to  India  from  furlough,  he 
thus  refers  to  his  life  at  Etawa  : ‘ I took  particular  care  to  avoid 
that  hole  Etawa,  where  you  and  I were  so  nearly  buried  seven 
years  ago.’  A commonplace  expression  enough,  but  I quote  it  for 
two  reasons  : first,  because,  in  a correspondence  of  many  thou- 
sand letters  which  I have  read  carefully,  this  is  the  one  occasion 
on  which  John  Lawrence  speaks  of  his  post  of  duty  by  a name 
which  is  the  very  first  to  rise  to  the  lips  of  too  many  public 
officers  when  they  happen  to  be  posted  to  a place  which  does 
not  quite  take  their  fancy  ; and,  secondly,  because  the  feelings 
of  dislike  with  which  he  undoubtedly  regarded  Etawa,  and 
which  betrayed  him  in  this  one  instance  into  the  use  of  the 
word  in  question,  were  aroused,  not  because  it  brought  him  too 
much  discomfort,  or  difficulty,  or  work,  but  because  it  brought 
him  too  little. 

‘ He  joined  (Mr.  Cumine  goes  on  to  say)  most  heartily  and  happily 
in  all  the  few  recreations  which  in  the  intervals  of  work  were  available 
in  such  a dull  place,  and  which  now  seem  somewhat  boyish.  In  the 
morning  there  was  pigeon-shooting  on  the  shady  side  of  the  house  ’ — an 
amusement  in  which  it  may  safely  be  said  he  would  not  have  joined  had 
it  involved  any  of  its  more  odious  and  more  modern  associations  of 
cruelty  and  gambling,  and  worse — ‘ in  the  afternoon  there  would  be 
games  of  quoits,  or  swimming  in  a large  bath  accompanied  by  some 
rough  horse-play.  Lawrence  was  an  excellent  shot,  but  the  game  was 
of  a much  tamer  kind  than  the  nobler  animals  in  the  pursuit  of  which 
he  afterwards  so  much  distinguished  himself  in  the  Jullundur  Doab.  It 
consisted  only  of  quails,  hares,  and  grey  and  black  partridges.  He  was 
as  pleasant  a companion  and  friend  as  I ever  met  with.  We  were  nearly 
of  the  same  age,  and  as  we  were  both  keenly  interested  in  everything 
relating  to  our  work,  we  were  never  separated  except  when  we  were  at 
our  respective  offices.  Our  very  charpoys  at  night  were  under  the  same 
punkah.  I observed  the  clear  decided  way  in  which  he  formed  a judg- 
ment upon  all  subjects,  and  the  energy  with  which  he  set  about  his 
work.  His  resemblance  to  Cromwell  in  these  and  other  respects  struck 
me  so  much  that  I called  him  Oliver,  thus  jocularly  expressing  my  sense 
of  his  vigour  and  determination.’ 

The  many  points  of  resemblance  between  John  Lawrence  and 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  downright  and  God-fearing  of 
Englishmen  did  not  strike  this  early  friend  alone.  They  have 
struck  portrait-painters  and  sculptors  and  friends  without  num- 
ber, and,  now  that  he  has  been  taken  from  us  full  of  years  and 
honours,  they  have  been  pointed  out  in  scores  of  newspaper 
articles  and  periodicals  and  sermons  ; but  it  is  not  without  in- 


1837-40  life  at  gorgaon  and  ETAWA.  IOI 

terest  to  note  how  early  in  life  the  parallel  first  suggested  itself, 
and  to  point  out  the  friend  whom,  as  it  seems,  it  was  the  first  to 
strike. 

Like  Cromwell,  John  Lawrence  was  rough  and  downright  in 
all  he  said  and  did.  Like  Cromwell,  he  cared  naught  for  ap- 
pearances, spoke  his  mind  freely,  swept  all  cobwebs  out  of  his 
path,  worked  like  a horse  himself,  and  insisted  on  hard  work  in 
others.  The  natives,  if  they  did  not  love  him,  regarded  him 
with  veneration  and  with  trust,  at  all  events,  as  somebody  to  be 
obeyed.  They  respect  a man  who  will  be  down  upon  them  in 
a moment  for  anything  that  is  wrong,  provided  only  that  he  is 
scrupulously  just,  and  this  John  Lawrence  always  was.  II is 
voice  was  loud,  his  presence  commanding  ; his  grey  eye,  deep- 
set  and  kindly  as  it  was,  glared  terribly  when  it  was  aroused  by 
anything  mean  or  cowardly  or  wrong.  His  temper — the  Law- 
rences were  all  naturally  quick-tempered — was  generally  well 
under  control  ; but  when  he  felt,  like  Jonah,  ‘that  he  did  well 
to  be  angry,’  there  was  no  mistake  at  all  about  it.  ‘What  do 
you  think  of  John  Lawrence  up  at  Etawa?’  asked  his  old 
schoolfellow,  Robert  Montgomery — who  was  then  magistrate  at 
Cawnporeand  had  not  seen  him  much  since  he  came  to  India — 
of  one  of  the  native  settlement  officers  whom  John  had  sent 
thither;  ‘ What  do  you  think  of  John  Lawrence  ? Does  he  work 
well  and  keep  you  at  it  ? ’ ‘ Doesn’t  he  ! ’ replied  the  awe- 

stricken native  ; 1 when  he  is  in  anger  his  voice  is  like  a tiger’s 
roar,  and  the  pens  tremble  in  the  hands  of  the  writers  all  round 
the  room.’ 1 

During  his  year’s  residence  at  Etawa,  Lawrence  paid  frequent 
visits  to  the  house  of  his  immediate  superior — Robert  North 
Collie  Hamilton,  the  Commissioner  of  Agra.  Hamilton  be- 
longed to  the  school  in  revefiue  matters  which  held  doctrines 
the  opposite  to  those  which  were  just  then  in  vogue.  He 
thought  that  the  talukdars  and  chieftains,  especially  the  Raja 
of  Mynpoorie  and  Etawa  itself,  were  being  hardly  dealt  with, 
for  they  were  to  lose  henceforward  all  power  in  their  taluk- 
daries,  and  to  be  restricted  to  a percentage  or  fixed  sum  in 
cash  (malikana).  He  pointed  out  that  such  a policy  tended  to 
deprive  the  Government  of  the  support  of  those  natives  who 
could  have  done  most  to  help  them  in  their  measures  for  edu- 
cation, for  police,  and  for  public  works,  and  that  the  power  of 

1 Jub  ghoose  men  t'he,  goya  sherbubber  kee  awauz  ! tub-to  mootussuddeeon  kee 
haut'h  men  kullumon  t'hurt  hurate  the  ! 


102 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


these  natural  rulers  would  slip  into  the  hands  of  far  less  scrupu- 
lous persons — the  village  bankers  and  money-lenders.  But 
these  differences  of  opinion  in  no  way  affected  the  friendship 
of  the  two  men  ; and  Hamilton,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  went 
out  of  his  way  to  give  John  Lawrence  an  excellent  start  again 
after  his  return  from  furlough — a service  which  John  Lawrence 
ever  afterwards  remembered  and  gratefully  acknowledged. 

One  of  the  most  important  duties  which  fell  to  his  lot  as 
settlement  officer  at  Etawa  was  the  demarcation  of  the  village 
boundaries  when  there  was  a dispute  respecting  them  which 
the  native  agents,  who  were  usually  employed  in  the  first  in- 
stance, were  unable  to  decide.  The  work  was  by  no  means 
new  to  him  ; for,  from  his  early  days  at  Paniput,  he  had  set 
himself  to  study  the  native  society  of  India  in  all  its  aspects, 
and  in  particular  that  most  characteristic  and  essential  element 
of  all — the  village  community.  It  was  to  conversations  with 
Lord  Lawrence  upon  this  subject  that,  some  forty  years  later, 
Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  his  preface  to  his  well-known  work  on 
1 Village  Communities  in  the  East  and  West,’  tells  us  that  he 
owed  much  of  the  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  of  Indian  so- 
ciety which  enabled  him  to  write  it ; and,  as  he  truly  observes, 
it  was  the  patient  study  of  the  ideas  and  usages  of  the  natives 
of  India  during  his  early  career  which  so  eminently  fitted  Lord 
Lawrence  for  the  supreme  rule  of  the  country. 

The  story  of  one  case  of  a disputed  boundary  decided  by 
John  Lawrence  while  he  was  at  Etawa  is,  in  my  judgment,  well 
worth  preserving,  both  for  the  sake  of  the  light  that  it  throws 
upon  a state  of  things  which,  under  our  rule,  seems  likely  soon 
to  be  a thing  of  the  past,  and  because  it  brings  into  conspicuous 
relief  the  patience,  the  sagacity,  and  the  resolution  of  the  chief 
actor  in  it. 


The  Disputed  Boundary. 

Among  the  many  fruitful  sources  of  crime  in  India,  few  are  more  bane- 
ful in  their  results  than  the  disputes  which,  until  a recent  period,  com- 
monly prevailed  throughout  the  country  regarding  village  boundaries. 
Feuds  originating  in  such  disputes  were  handed  down  from  father  to 
son,  embittered  by  constant  acts  of  mutual  violence.  The  most  des- 
perate affrays  occurred,  which  were  seldom  quelled  before  numbers  on 
either  side  were  killed  and  wounded  ; and  even  when  temporarily  ad- 
justed, unless  settled  by  general  consent,  they  too  often  broke  out  with 
increased  animosity.  In  quarters  where  strong  feeling  for  their  clan  pre- 
vailed, the  feud  would  spread  throughout  all  the  villages  in  the  vicinity, 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


103 


whose  inhabitants  then  ranged  themselves  on  either  side  as  their  preju- 
dices, arising  from  caste  or  religion,  dictated. 

Among  all  castes  their  love  for  the  soil,  and  veneration  for  everything 
connected  with  the  village,  is  remarkable.  These  local  attachments 
seem,  indeed,  to  me  to  supply  the  place  of  love  of  country.  It  may  be 
said  that  a native  of  India  does  not  feel  that  he  has  a country.  He  cares 
nought  for  what  is  passing  in  the  world  or  who  is  his  ruler.  His  love,  his 
hatred,  his  fears,  his  hopes,  are  confined  to  the  village  circle.  He  knows 
little  and  cares  less  for  what  goes  on  beyond  it.  So  many  different 
dynasties  have  governed  his  country  ; it  has  so  often  been  transferred 
from  one  ruler  to  another,  that  so  long  as  no  one  interferes  with  village 
matters,  he  is  indifferent.  On  the  other  hand,  let  any  attack  be  made 
upon  the  village,  let  a claim  be  preferred  to  a single  acre  of  the  most 
barren  and  unproductive  of  its  lands,  and  everyone  is  up  in  arms,  ready 
to  risk  his  life  or  spend  his  fortune  in  preserving  those  possessions  invi- 
olate. 

The  following  remarks,  though  more  or  less  applicable  to  different 
parts  of  British  India,  more  particularly  refer  to  the  North-West  Pro- 
vinces, and  especially  to  that  portion  which  lies  along  the  right  bank  of 
the  river  Jumna.  Here  the  people  are  independent  and  warlike.  The 
village  institutions,  having  never  been  meddled  with,  are  more  complete 
than  in  most  parts  of  our  possessions.  The  soil  is  fertile,  having  facili- 
ties for  irrigation  both  from  the  river  and  from  canals.  It  is  subdivided 
among  a great  number  of  proprietors,  who  cultivate  their  lands  with  their 
own  hands.  The  majority  in  every  village  are  either  actually  related  or 
are,  at  any  rate,  of  the  same  caste.  Situated  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Sikh 
and  Rajpoot  states,  with  whose  people  they  are  even  now  at  constant  feud, 
and  previous  to  our  rule  were  at  open  warfare,  circumstances  have  fos- 
tered the  bonds  of  clan  and  kindred  to  a very  remarkable  extent. 

In  this  country,  then,  there  are  extensive  tracts  o.f  land  reserved  for 
grazing.  In  them  large  herds  of  cattle  are  kept  by  all  classes.  The 
cultivated  lands  lie  round  or  near  the  village,  and  are  divided  among  and 
owned  by  individuals.  That  reserved  for  pasturage  is  more  usually  held 
in  common  and,  extending  to  the  village  boundaries,  lies  unenclosed,  and 
it  is  here  that  affrays  most  frequently  occur. 

The  village  cowherds  collect  the  cattle  every  morning  after  milking- 
time and  lead  them  out  to  graze,  bringing  them  back  at  night  to  their 
respective  owners.  In  that  pastoral  country,  villagers  often  own  many 
thousand  head  of  cattle.  Where  the  cattle  are  numerous  and  the  area 
enclosed,  the  cowherds  are  tempted  to  encroach  on  the  possessions  of 
neighbouring  villages,  particularly  when  the  inhabitants  are  less  numer- 
ous and  powerful  than  their  own.  The  boundaries  were  often  ill-defined, 
and  affrays  were  consequently  very  frequent.  Perhaps  one  party,  after 
repeatedly  warning  off  the  intruders,  attempt  to  seize  their  cattle.  In- 
stantly the  shrill  cries  of  the  cowherds  convey  the  alarm,  and  the  whole 
community  pour  forth  like  bees  from  a hive.  Men,  women,  and  even 
children  rush  to  the  rescue,  armed  with  swords,  spears,  bludgeons — in 


104 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


short,  with  the  first  weapon  that  comes  to  hand.  Their  opponents  are 
supported  by  their  own  friends,  and  a desperate  conflict  ensues.  The 
value  of  the  land  in  question  is  of  little  consequence.  It  may  be,  and 
often  is,  valueless.  This  is  not  the  question.  It  is  a point  of  honour, 
and  every  man  is  ready  to  lay  down  his  life  rather  than  give  up  a single 
foot  of  the  hereditary  soil. 

No  cases  are  more  intricate  or  difficult  to  decide  than  these.  The 
magistrate  is  completely  bewildered  ; witnesses  on  either  side  are  ready 
to  swear  anything  which  may  be  required  for  their  own  parties.  I have 
known  more  than  one  instance  where,  what  with  those  who  have  been 
killed  or  wounded,  those  who  have  run  away  to  escape  justice,  as  being 
active  parties  in  the  fight,  and  those  who  have  been  sentenced  to  impris- 
onment, a village  community  has  been  completely  broken  up  for  the 
sake  of  a piece  of  land  worth  perhaps  a few  shillings. 

The  Government,  fully  aware  for  many  years  how  much  these  evils 
affected  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country,  were  most  anxious  to 
have  the  village  boundaries  carefully  defined.  A scientific  survey  has 
been  in  progress  for  many  years  in  the  upper  provinces,  and  is  now  (1840) 
nearly  concluded.  The  boundaries  were  all  determined  and  marked  off 
previous  to  the  survey,  and  thus  nearly  a complete  stop  was  put  to  all 
affrays  arising  from  this  cause.  It  is  true  that  now  and  then  these  old 
disputes  break  out,  but  this  is  not  often  the  case,  and  when  it  does  hap- 
pen, a local  officer  can  easily,  with  the  assistance  of  the  village  map,  ad- 
just them  peaceably. 

The  survey,  I may  here  observe,  has  been  of  infinite  value,  as  enabling 
the  Government  to  apportion  fairly  the  land  revenue  ; but  if  it  had  done 
nothing  more  than  necessitate  the  settlement  of  the  village  boundaries,  it 
would  have  conferred  an  inestimable  benefit  on  the  people.  During 
several  years  I was  employed  in  apportioning  the  land  revenues  of  differ- 
ent districts,  and  among  other  duties  had  to  superintend  tire  settlement 
and  demarcation  of  the  village  boundaries.  Respectable  native  officers 
were  employed  ; they  went  from  village  to  village,  collected  the  head- 
men, and,  if  there  was  no  dispute,  marked  off  and  defined  the  boundary 
in  the  presence  of  all  parties,  causing  charcoal  to  be  buried  or  landmarks 
erected.  When  there  was  any  dispute,  the  officer  endeavoured  to  settle 
it,  arid  if  he  was  unable  to  do  so,  he  reported  it  to  his  superior  and  went 
on  to  the  next  village.  Another  class,  a superior  grade,  then  took  up  the 
unadjusted  cases,  of  which,  after  much  trouble  and  delay,  they  were 
able  to  decide  perhaps  nine-tenths.  The  remainder  lay  over  for  the 
European  officer,  who  visited  the  spot  himself,  and  then  obliged  the 
people  to  settle  it  by  arbitration  of  some  kind  or  other. 

In  this  way  thousands  of  boundaries  were  fixed  and  decided  in  a very 
short  space  of  time.  In  most  cases,  when  the  officer  is  on  the  spot,  the 
matter  is  tolerably  easily  decided  ; but  I have  known  instances  when  he 
has  been  detained  days,  and  even  weeks,  about  a single  boundary.  In 
such  cases  he  pitches  his  camp  near  the  village,  carries  on  his  other 
duties,  and  remains  as  patiently  as  he  can  till  the  matter  is  settled.  The 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


105 


tricks,  the  schemes,  the  deceit,  the  lies,  to  which  each  party  has  recourse 
in  order  to  deceive,  or  to  evade  a decision  when  likely  to  go  against 
themselves,  though  to  him  a source  of  infinite  annoyance,  would  be 
amusing  to  a looker  on.  It  is  vain  for  him  to  endeavour  to  settle  the 
question  himself,  for  he  knows  nothing  of  its  merits,  and  as  to  taking 
evidence  in  the  matter,  it  would  be  useless.  He  might  fill  volumes  with 
depositions,  and  in  the  end  be  a great  deal  more  in  the  dark  than  when 
he  began. 

I don’t  know  that  I can  do  better  than  relate  one  of  the  many  hundred 
cases  of  the  kind  in  which  I have  been  personally  engaged.  It  was  a 
dispute  which,  as  far  as  I can  recollect  at  this  distant  period,  had  re- 
mained pending  for  some  twenty  years.  Though  several  of  the  district 
officers  had  at  different  times  visited  the  spot,  and  endeavoured  to  ad- 
just the  quarrel,  it  had  baffled  and  wearied  them  out. 

In  this  case  the  right  to  several  hundred  acres  of  very  fine  land  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  river  was  disputed,  so  that  the  property  as  well  as  the 
honour  of  both  parties  was  involved.  The  rival  villages  were  inhabited 
by  people  of  the  same  caste,  who  were  very  powerful  in  that  part  of  the 
country,  and  thus  the  matter  excited  general  interest.  What  made  the 
dispute  more  difficult  to  adjust  was  that  the  one  village  belonged  to  the 
British  Government,  the  other  to  a neighbouring  chief ; so  that  the  dis- 
pute involved  the  settlement  of  the  ‘ district  ’ as  well  as  the  village 
boundary. 

The  lands  in  both  villages  were  held  under  a ‘ coparcenary  ’ tenure — 
that  is,  by  a brotherhood  descended  from  a common  ancestor.  There 
were  probably  not  less  than  five  hundred  proprietors,  holding  among 
them  some  eight  or  ten  thousand  acres  in  either  village,  all  of  which 
they  occupied  themselves ; the  cultivated  land  being  subdivided  and 
owned  ; while  the  jungle  was  held  in  common.  The  village  which  could 
muster  most  fighting  men'  was  naturally  least  inclined  to  a legal  adjust- 
ment of  the  question.  They  had  appropriated  the  whole  of  the  disputed 
area,  and  were  powerful  enough  to  retain  possession.  Any  decision, 
therefore,  they  considered,  could  do  them  but  little  good  and  might  in- 
jure them  materially. 

I had  determined,  however,  that  the  question  should  now  be  set  at  rest 
for  ever.  So,  writing  to  the  chief  to  depute  one  of  his  confidential  offi- 
cers to  meet  me  on  the  border,  I set  off  for  the  spot,  and  pitched  my 
camp  in  the  neighbourhood. 

The  chief  gladly  acceded  to  my  proposition,  and  I was  waited  on  by  a 
venerable  greybeard  of  some  seventy  years  of  age,  who,  after  presenting 
his  credentials,  said  that  his  party  was  in  attendance,  and  was  both  ready 
and  anxious  for  the  adjustment  of  the  dispute.  This  appeared  pleasant 
enough.  I immediately  put  a stop  to  all  other  matters,  and,  collecting 
the  leaders  of  the  two  villages,  they  squatted  themselves  on  the  ground 
in  a large  circle  round  us.  I quickly,  however,  saw,  from  the  spirit  dis- 
played by  both  sides,  that  there  was  little  prospect  of  the  case  being 
speedily  settled.  Accordingly,  I left  them  for  a few  days  to  discuss 


io6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


matters  among  themselves,  but  strictly  enforced  their  attendance  from 
morning  until  evening.  When  I thought  they  must  be  both  well  tired 
of  each  other,  I would,  now  and  then,  look  in  to  see  how  matters  were 
advancing.  At  the  end  of  the  third  day,  I found  that  things  were  literally 
in  statu  quo.  They  had  talked  till  they  were  tired,  and,  now,  as  they 
sat  on  their  haunches,  they  were  smoking  away  in  perfect  resignation  and 
contentment. 

It  is  usual  in  these  cases  for  a jury  of  twelve  persons  to  be  appointed, 
six  of  either  party.  But  each  village  proposed  to  nominate  such  in- 
veterate partisans,  that  it  became  clearly  hopeless  to  get  a unanimous 
decision.  In  fact,  there  would  have  been  much  difficulty  in  finding  any 
impartial  person  in  the  neighbourhood  who  possessed  local  knowledge 
sufficiently  accurate  to  enable  him  to  decide  the  boundary.  Everyone 
seemed  to  be  enlisted  on  one  side  or  the  other.  At  last,  when  things 
seemed  well-nigh  desperate,  I proposed  to  both  parties  that  they  should 
put  the  matter  into  the  hands  of  one  person,  whose  decision  should  be 
final ; that  our  village  should  select  a man  of  theirs,  or  that  their  village 
should  select  a man  of  ours.  This  was  agreed  to,  and  so  far  the  question 
was  narrowed.  The  discussion  then  arose,  from  which  village  the  um- 
pire should  be  chosen.  It  had  at  first  struck  me  that  the  anxiety  would 
be  to  have  the  selection  of  the  umpire.  On  the  contrary,  however, 
either  party  wished  their  opponents  to  choose,  being  fully  satisfied  that 
there  was  no  one  in  their  respective  villages  so  base  as  not  to  be  willing 
to  perjure  himself  for  the  general  weal.  The  old  chief,  my  co-commis- 
sioner, was  a venerable,  and  indeed  respectable  old  man  in  his  way,  but 
acted  as  a mere  partisan,  not  scrupling  to  use  his  influence  and  money 
in  supporting  his  own  party.  The  elders  of  the  village,  and  indeed  the 
whole  community,  were  anxious  to  have  any  settlement  of  the  business 
which  would  give  them  even  a portion  of  the  land.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  were  rather  afraid  that  I was  zealous  for  the  success  of  my  own  side, 
for  it  could  not  enter  into  their  thoughts  that  I was  simply  anxious  for  the 
speedy  adjustment  of  the  boundary.  My  own  party,  who  knew  me  better, 
were  not  so  satisfied  of  my  intentions  towards  them.  Indeed,  they  well 
knew,  from  previous  discussions,  that  I should  not  hesitate  to  uphold  any 
settlement,  however  injurious  to  their  interests,  if  I deemed  it  to  be  just. 

When  both  sides  were  fairly  wearied  out,  the  weaker  party,  seeing  that 
if  they  failed  in  obtaining  a decision  now  their  case  was  gone  for  ever, 
with  many  fears  and  doubts  for  the  result,  at  last  agreed  to  select  an 
umpire  from  their  rivals.  This  appeared  a great  triumph  to  the  British 
villagers,  who  already  fancied  themselves  secure  of  victory.  A day  was 
given  for  consultation  with  the  brethren  preparatory  to  selecting  the 
umpire.  Ten  o’clock  A.M.  on  the  following  day  was  fixed,  when  all 
parties  were  to  assemble,  and,  after  appointing  this  important  personage 
and  signing  a few  simple  papers  in  which  everyone  agreed  to  abide  by 
the  decision  under  heavy  penalties,  we  were  all  to  adjourn  to  the  spot 
and,  in  the  presence  of  the  elders  of  the  surrounding  villages,  to  super- 
intend the  demarcation  of  the  boundary. 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


107 


Accordingly,  early  on  the  following  morning,  everyone  was  in  attend- 
ance close  to  my  tent,  in  a fine  shady  grove,  which,  for  freshness  of  air 
and  ample  space,  was  much  more  pleasant  than  a confined  tent.  Here, 
then,  I joined  them  at  once,  and  called  on  our  opponents  to  name  their 
man.  The  elders  all  stood  forth,  and  one  venerable  greybeard  thus  ad- 
dressed me:  ‘Just  one  of  the  age  ! In  obedience  to  your  instructions 
last  night,  we  assembled  in  our  choupal  (public  hall)  the  whole  brother- 
hood, joint  proprietors  of  our  village  lands.  We  explained  to  them  the 
labour  we  had  endured  and  the  toils  we  had  suffered  in  fighting  the 
common  cause  in  your  court.  We  reminded  them  of  the  years  which  had 
passed  since  we  had  been  wrongfully  deprived  of  all  use  of  the  disputed 
lands.  We  enumerated  the  sums  we  had  expended  in  fruitless  attempts 
to  obtain  justice.  We  recalled  to  their  remembrance  the  many  sahibs 
who  had  visited  the  spot,  and  attempted,  but  all  in  vain,  to  define  the 
boundary,  so  strong  and  mighty  were  our  tyrants.  We  pointed  out  that 
now,  by  the  special  interposition  of  the  Deity  and  our  good  fortune,  a 
Sahib  had  arrived,  in  whose  eyes  both  parties  were  alike,  and  who  would 
never  see  the  weak  and  friendless  oppressed  ; that  now  was  the  time  to 
secure  a settlement  of  our  claims,  for  if  we  permitted  the  opportunity  to 
pass,  we  might  despair  of  ever  getting  our  rights  ; that  accordingly  we 
had  determined  to  select  an  umpire,  even  from  the  adversaries’  village, 
but  had  delayed  finally  doing  so  until  we  could  gather  the  opinion  of  all 
who  were  interested.’ 

The  speaker  then  added  that  the  whole  village  had  unanimously  ap- 
proved of  the  proposal,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  name  the  umpire,  pro- 
vided that  the  opposite  party  bound  themselves,  and  that  I promised 
that  if  the  person  so  chosen  failed  to  decide  the  boundary,  I would  de- 
cide it  myself.  To  this' I assented,  and  my  villagers  cordially  agreed. 
The  elder  then  said,  ‘ We  select  Sahib  Sing,  son  of  Bulram,  for  our  um- 
pire, and  we  desire  that  he  take  his  only  son  in  his  arms,  and,  laying 
his  hand  on  his  head,  solemnly  swear  that  he  will  faithfully  and  truly 
decide  the  boundary  ; that  if  he  perjures  himself  he  hopes  that  his  son 
may  die,  that  he  may  never  again  have  a child,  that  he  may  perish  root 
and  branch,  and  that  he  may  have  neither  any  of  kin  to  perform  his  fu- 
neral rites,  nor  offspring  to  continue  his  line  to  posterity.’ 

I may  here  remark  that  among  all  classes,  but  particularly  among  the 
Hindus,  the  first  duty  of  a man,  in  a religious  point  of  view,  is  to  beget 
a son.  To  die  and  leave  no  son  to  perform  the  funeral  rites  to  deliver 
the  father  from  the  hell  called  ‘ Put,’  is  considered  the  greatest  of  mis- 
fortunes. The  natives  of  India  are  most  attached  parents,  but  the  feel- 
ing to  the  male  offspring  is  quite  extravagant.  I recollect  a merchant 
whose  only  son  died.  The  loss  turned  the  unfortunate  father’s  head  ; 
he  destroyed  his  wife  and  two  little  girls,  and  then  hanged  himself. 

But  to  resume.  When  the  old  man  had  finished  speaking,  he  folded 
his  arms  and  stepped  back  among  his  companions.  * Well,  Sahib  Sing,’ 
said  I,  ‘ what  say  you  ? — do  you  consent  ? ’ Sahib  Sing  was  a fine  stout 
fellow  of  thirty,  the  son  of  one  of  the  lately  deceased  headmen,  and 


io8 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


leader  of  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  influential  ‘ thoks’ or  sub- 
divisions of  our  village.  Sahib  Sing  instantly  agreed.  All  the  docu- 
ments, which  had  been  previously  prepared  were  then  signed,  and  things 
at  last  seemed  in  a fair  train  for  settlement. 

An  orderly  was  forthwith  despatched  to  Sahib  Sing’s  house  for  his 
son.  After  waiting  for  half-an-hour  a second  was  despatched,  but  still 
no  child  made  its  appearance.  At  length,  when  more  than  an  hour  had 
expired,  the  two  orderlies  returned,  saying  that  the  child  was  not  to  be 
found,  and  that  both  its  mother  and  its  grandmother  said  that  they  did 
not  know  what  had  become  of  it.  Here  was  a new  obstacle  in  our  way. 
However,  being  too  well  acquainted  with  the  ways  of  the  people  to  be  so 
easily  baffled,  I told  our  party  to  depute  two  of  their  number  to  search 
out  the  child,  telling  them  that  I would  give  them  half-an-hour  to  pro- 
duce it,  and  that  if  they  failed  to  do  so  the  cause  should  be  decided  by 
myself.  On  this  they  hurried  off,  accompanied  by  the  orderlies,  and  in 
a very  short  time  returned  with  the  boy,  whom,  it  seems,  his  mother  had 
concealed  in  a wooden  chest,  but  produced  on  being  threatened  by  the 
headman.  I w'as  greatly  pleased,  and  commended  them  for  their  expe- 
dition, to  which  they,  with  seeming  sincerity,  replied  that  they  were  as 
eager  to  have  the  matter  brought  to  an  issue  as  I could  be,  and  that  all 
they  wanted  was  justice. 

Anxious  to  lose  no  more  time  we  all  mounted  our  horses.  The  little 
boy  was  put  on  the  elephant  with  the  old  chief,  and  accompanied  by 
hundreds  of  the  villagers,  many  of  them  mounted  on  their  brood  mares 
and  still  more  on  foot,  we  took  our  way  to  the  disputed  boundary.  Our 
road  took  us  near  the  village,  and  as  we  approached  we  were  met  by 
some  hundreds  of  the  women,  headed  by  Sahib  Sing’s  mother  and  wife, 
who  insisted  on  the  child’s  being  given  up,  and  reviled  Sahib  Sing,  the 
headman,  and  indeed  myself,  with  all  the  abuse  in  which  the  Hindu- 
stani language  is  so  fluent.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  uproar.  They 
beat  their  breasts,  tore  their  hair,  and  filled  the  air  with  their  cries  and 
lamentations.  For  some  time  I could  hear  nought  but  volleys  of  abuse, 
but  at  last  gathered  that  the  women,  being  fully  impressed  with  the  con- 
viction that  Sahib  Sing’s  decision  would  cause  the  death  of  his  child, 
were  determined  at  all  hazards  to  rescue  it  from  destruction.  It  was  in 
vain  that  I pointed  out  to  them  that  everything  depended  on  the  father 
himself,  that  his  child’s  life  was  in  his  own  hands,  and  that  it  was  clearly 
out  of  the  question  that  he  would  give  any  but  a just  decision,  in  which 
case  the  boy  was  perfectly  safe.  They  were  by  no  means  satisfied,  and 
with  tears  and  entreaties  implored  me  to  restore  the  boy  to  his  mother. 
Sahib  Sing  in  the  meantime  sat  on  his  mare  in  dogged  silence,  and  gave 
no  assistance  one  way  or  the  other.  Seeing  that  all  explanation  was  utterly 
useless,  I desired  the  cavalcade  to  proceed,  upon  which  these  viragoes 
seized  my  horse  by  the  reins,  declaring  we  should  not  proceed  till  the  child 
was  given  up.  It  was  with  great  difficulty  and  much  delay  we  finally  got 
free  from  these  ladies.  Indeed,  1 believe  that  they  would  have  succeeded 
in  carrying  off  the  child  had  he  not  been  perched  out  of  their  reach. 


1837-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


109 


Many  will  doubtless  exclaim  against  my  conduct  in  thus  lending  my- 
self to  the  miserable  superstition  of  the  people.  To  this  I reply  that 
the  ordeal  was  their  own  proposition,  not  mine,  and  that  nothing  short 
of  it  would  have  satisfied  the  parties  interested.  They  had  often  heard 
me  laugh  at  different  absurdities  of  their  religion,  on  which  occasions  I 
had  reasoned  with  them,  but  in  vain.  * No,  no,’  they  said  ; ‘ you  English 
are  very  wise,  we  will  allow,  but  you  do  not  understand  our  religion.’  In 
fact,  as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  time  and  labour  are  utterly  lost  in 
such  discussions.  The  only  way  that  will  ever  bring  the  natives  to  truer 
and  more  enlightened  ideas,  is  the  gradual  progress  of  infant  education. 
The  attempts  to  change  the  faith  of  the  adult  population  have  hitherto 
failed,  and  will,  I am  afraid,  continue  to  fail. 

To  resume  my  story.  Having  shaken  off  our  assailants,  we  hurried 
on  to  the  boundary,  where,  after  duly  examining  and  identifying  the 
spot  up  to  the  point  where  the  undisputed  boundary  of  either  village  ex- 
tended, Sahib  Sing  was  called  to  do  his  duty  as  umpire — to  take  his 
child  in  his  arms  and  point  out  the  ancient  boundary  line.  In  these 
discussions  it  is  usual  for  the  umpires,  after  examining,  if  necessary, 
the  landmarks  and  features  of  the  surrounding  country,  and  satisfying 
themselves,  to  commence  at  the  last  undisputed  landmark  of  the  two 
villages,  or,  if  the  whole  line  is  disputed,  from  the  * toka,’  or  spot 
which  marks  the  boundary  of  their  contiguous  villages.  From  this  point 
he  walks  forward,  and  whatever  route  he  takes  is  considered  to  be  the 
boundary.  The  arbitrator  is,  of  course,  permitted  to  question  parties 
or  make  any  inquiries  he  may  deem  necessary.  This,  however,  is  sel- 
dom done,  as  he  is  usually  selected  for  his  intimate  local  knowledge.  In 
the  present  case  not  only  Sahib  Sing  but,  I verily  believe,  every  man  in 
the  two  villages,  was  perfectly  acquainted  with  the  true  and  ancient 
boundary. 

Sahib  Sing  accordingly  stood  forward,  took  his  child  in  his  arms, 
looked  at  it,  then  at  the  surrounding  multitude,  turned  again  to  his 
child,  and,  after  a few  moments’  hesitation,  put  it  down  quietly,  saying, 
* I cannot  decide  the  boundary.’  There  was  a general  murmur  from  the 
one  side,  and  a half-suppressed  cry  of  exultation  from  their  opponents. 
I rode  up  immediately  and  called  out,  ‘Come,  come,  Sahib  Sing!  this 
trick  won’t  do ; you  shall  decide  the  boundary  or  take  the  conse- 
quences.’ Sahib  Sing  threw  himself  down,  crying  out,  ‘ You  may  take 
my  life,  you  may  cut  me  in  pieces,  you  may  do  with  me  what  you  please, 
but  I never  will  decide  the  boundary.’  * Very  good,’  I replied,  and  turn- 
ing to  the  headmen  of  his  party,  said,  ‘You  have  now  exhausted  every 
subterfuge  and  pretence,  you  have  brought  me  to  the  spot,  and  the  boun- 
dary must  and  shall  be  decided.  I will  give  you  one  ghurree  (twenty- 
four  minutes):  if  you  can  induce  Sahib  Sing  to  do  the  duty,  which  he  has 
voluntarily  undertaken,  which  you  have  all  refused  to  any  of  your  oppo- 
nents, and  which  they  as  a last  resource  have  given  up  to  you,  well  and 
good  ; if  not,  I will  myself  decide  the  boundary,  and  you  know  well  what 
will  be  the  result. 


1 10 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


After  saying  this  I jumped  off  my  horse  and,  throwing  the  reins  to  my 
groom,  sat  down  to  smoke  a cigar,  and  ruminate  as  to  what  was  most  ad- 
visable to  do  in  the  event,  which  seemed  probable,  of  Sahib  Sing  persist- 
ing in  not  deciding  the  boundary. 

For  some  reasons  I would  have  been  willing  to  undertake  the  decision. 
From  all  that  I had  gathered  during  the  constant  discussions,  I was 
perfectly  satisfied  that  my  own  party  were  in  the  wrong.  Our  opponents 
had  in  a measure  trusted  their  case  in  my  hands,  and  I was  loth  to  see 
them  injured.  I was  satisfied  in  my  own  mind  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  the  arbitrator  to  decide  the  line  in  favour  of  his  own  party.  The  anx- 
iety of  that  party  that  he  should  act,  his  own  bearing  during  the  discus- 
sion, the  fears  of  the  women  for  the  child,  all  plainly  indicated  the 
probable  result  of  the  arbitration.  I could  not,  it  is  true,  have  ascer- 
tained the  precise  position  of  the  ancient  landmarks,  but,  by  making 
either  party  point  out  what  they  respectively  deemed  to  be  their  own 
rights,  and  by  collecting  the  opinions  of  the  most  respectable  of  the 
elders  of  neighbouring  villages,  I might  have  decided  on  a line  approxi- 
mating to  the  true  one.  Such  a decision,  however,  would  not  have  been 
popular  ; it  would  have  disgusted  my  ow’n  people  completely ; and 
though  I cared  little  about  this,  it  would,  in  all  probability,  have  led  to 
future  quarrels,  and  perhaps  to  the  destruction  of  the  boundary  at  some 
future  period.  It  was  a grand  point,  if  possible,  to  secure  a decision 
which  would  have  the  force  of  public  opinion  in  its  favour,  a decision 
also  which,  being  their  own  free  act,  either  party  would  be  ashamed  to 
violate.  The  object,  in  short,  was  to  make  a settlement  to  which 
neither  party  could  fairly  object,  and  thereby  secure  the  peace  and  tran- 
quillity of  this  part  of  the  district ; and  this  seemed  more  likely  to  be  ob- 
tained by  Sahib  Sing’s  decision  than  by  any  other  means.  If  he  gave  it 
against  his  own  people  their  mouths  were  shut  forever,  and  if  the  other 
party  lost  they  lost  by  their  owrn  act,  and  after  all  were  in  no  worse  posi- 
tion than  before. 

While  such  reflections  were  passing  in  my  mind,  I no\v  and  then  over- 
heard the  headmen  whispering  and  talking  with  Sahib  Sing  a little  on  one 
side.  They  were  evidently  urging  and  even  threatening  him,  and  lie  was 
as  vehemently  refusing.  At  last  Sahib  Sing  jumped  up  exclaiming,  ‘ You 
are  a set  of  double-faced  rascals  : you  want  me  to  kill  my  child  to  secure 
your  boundary  ; you  tell  the  Sahib  one  thing  and  me  another ; you 
have  forced  me  to  it — I will  settle  the  boundary,  but  in  a way  you 
won’t  like.’  Saying  this  he  hastily  seized  the  child  in  his  arms,  and 
called  out,  ‘ I am  ready,  I will  show  you  the  boundary  ! ’ I had  jumped 
up  on  hearing  his  voice,  and  seeing  by  his  excited  manner  that  he  was 
evidently  in  earnest,  called  to  him,  ‘ Well  done,  Sahib  Sing  ! don’t  you 
be  afraid  of  these  fellows,  I will  protect  you  ; only  let  us  have  the  true 
boundary.’ 

The  interest  of  all  parties  was  now  very  great.  The  grass  being  ratlier 
high  in  some  parts,  Sahib  Sing  mounted  his  horse,  with  his  child  in  front 
of  him  and  with  one  of  my  orderlies  to  lead  the  animal  according  to  his 


iS37-4° 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


1 1 1 


directions.  As  we  rode  forward,  previous  to  reaching  a particular  point 
it  was  doubtful  how  he  intended  to  act,  but  when  he  passed  that  mark 
and  turned  to  the  right,  the  howl  of  execration  which  burst  from  our  vil- 
lagers showed  that  Sahib  Sing,  for  once  in  his  life  at  least,  had  acted 
fairly.  ‘Nevermind!’  I exclaimed  ; ‘ go  on,  Sahib  Sing  ; don’t  mind 
these  fellows.’  The  tumult  which  now  ensued  was  very  great.  The  vil- 
lagers began  pelting  him  with  stones  and  clods  of  earth,  and  pressing  on 
all  sides  towards  him.  I had  some  mounted  men  with  me,  and  perhaps 
twice  as  many  footmen,  who  endeavoured  to  keep  back  the  crowd.  It 
was  to  no  purpose  that  I roared  out  and  threatened  them  ; the  clamour 
drowned  my  voice  ; a few  minutes’  delay  and  Sahib  Sing  would  have 
been  pulled  from  his  mare.  Seeing  matters  in  such  a state,  I galloped 
up  to  one  of  the  rioters,  who  was  making  himself  very  conspicuous  in 
front  of  his  party,  urging  and  exciting  them  to  the  attack.  The  fellow, 
nothing  daunted,  stood  his  ground.  Seeing  that  it  was  the  critical  mo- 
ment on  which  everything  depended,  I let  the  butt-end  of  my  heavy  hunt- 
ing whip  fall  with  such  force  on  his  head  that  he  was  down  in  an  instant. 
His  followers,  seeing  his  fate,  turned  immediately  and  fell  back.  Order 
was  quickly  restored,  and  the  boundary  was  carried  to  the  end  without 
further  interruption. 

The  boundary  being  once  defined,  everything  went  on  smoothly. 
Charcoal  was  buried  at  intervals,  and  pillars  of  strong  masonry  erected 
at  particular  points  where  the  line  suddenly  bent,  and  a sketch  map  of 
the  country,  roughly  though  correctly  prepared,  was  duly  recorded.  To 
this  no  opposition  was  offered.  The  battle  had  been  fought  and  won, 
and  either  side  had  done  their  best.  It  was  fate  and  not  any  neglect  on 
their  part  which  had  decided  it  against  my  people.  I saw  Sahib  Sing  a 
few  days  after,  and,  on  questioning  him,  he  told  me  that  though  some 
had  grumbled,  on  the  whole  his  people  were  not  dissatisfied.  The  gen- 
eral feeling  seemed  to  be,  ‘ What  could  he  do  ? — he  could  not  kill  his 
own  child.’  The  fact  was,  Sahib  Sing  had  a strong  following  of  friends 
and  relatives  in  the  village,  so  that  the  most  sulky  found  it  necessary  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  common  loss.  Shere  Sing,  whose  head  I had  so 
summarily  broken,  had  also  the  audacity  to  make  his  appearance  before 
I left.  The  fellow  actually  seemed  to  make  a boast  of  his  broken  pate. 
‘ Shere  Sing,’  said  I,  * take  warning  and  do  not  get  into  anymore  rows  ; 
it  was  well  for  you  the  other  day  that  you  did  not  lose  your  life.’  ‘ Oh ! ’ 
said  he  smiling,  * I have  no  excuse  to  make  ; I could  never  have  shown 
my  face  in  the  village  had  I not  resisted.  That  blow  of  yours,  though  it 
was  rather  too  heavy,  saved  my  honour.  Everyone  declared  that  I had 
shown  myself  a real  supporter  of  the  village  interests.  May  your  Honor 
live  a thousand  years,  but  don’t  strike  so  hard  another  time.’  I will  here 
conclude  by  remarking  that  the  decision  and  the  way  in  which  it  was 
brought  about  was  highly  lauded  far  and  near,  and,  what  was  still  better, 
it  facilitated  the  settlement  of  many  similar  disputes.  I had  not  an- 
other contested  boundary  that  season. 

Delhi : March  20,  1845. 


1 12 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


Towards  the  end  of  1839,  before  the  time  had  come  for  the 
heavier  portion  of  the  settlement  work  at  Etawa,  John  Law- 
rence and  his  friend  Cumine  were  both  taken  seriously  ill,  and 
the  district  found  itself  deprived  at  once  of  its  collector  and  its 
settlement  officer.  Cumine  was  the  first  to  recover,  and  was  at 
once  moved  down  to  a healthier  climate  at  Allahabad,  but  John 
Lawrence’s  illness  was  much  more  severe.  It  was  an  attack  of 
jungle  fever.  During  nearly  a month  his  life  was  in  danger, 
and  for  a time  it  was  despaired  of.  And  here  I may  give  an 
anecdote  which  he  used  to  tell  himself,  and  is  not  a little  char- 
acteristic of  his  energy  and  determination.  He  had  often  been 
heard  to  say,  in  the  abounding  and  jubilant  strength  of  his  youth, 
that  he  was  sure  that  many  a man  need  not  die,  if  he  made  up 
his  mind  not  to  do  so.  But  he  was  now  rapidly  becoming  worse 
and  appeared  to  be  in  a state  of  collapse.  One  day  the  doctor 
who  had  been  attending  him  told  him  that  he  feared  he  could 
hardly  live  till  the  following  morning,  and  took  leave  of  him 
accordingly.  No  sooner  was  he  gone  than  his  patient  roused 
himself  to  the  emergency.  Now  was  the  chance  of  putting  his 
favourite  maxim  to  the  test.  He  determined  not  to  die,  and 
bade  his  servant  give  him  a bottle  of  burgundy  which  lay  in 
a box  beneath  his  bed.  He  drank  it  off,  and  next  day  when 
the  doctor  called,  by  way  of  form,  expecting  to  find  that  all 
was  over,  he  found  John  Lawrence  sitting  up  at  his  desk,  clothed 
and  in  his  right  mind,  and  actually  casting  up  his  settlement 
accounts  ! 

It  is  recorded  of  one  of  the  best  of  the  Roman  emperors,  who 
had  given  his  whole  life  to  the  performance  of  his  duties,  that, 
when  he  felt  death  coming  upon  him,  he  bade  his  servants  set 
him  on  his  feet,  * for  an  emperor  ought  to  leave  the  world 
standing’;  and  standing  he  actually  died.  It  was  a truly  im- 
perial resolve.  The  result  was  different,  but  the  spirit,  the 
force  of  will,  the  keenness  of  the  intellect,  the  strength  of 
the  affections  which  dies  not  with  the  dying  physical  powers 
— nay,  is  often  strung  in  that  supreme  moment  to  its  greatest 
tension,  and  is,  surely,  not  the  weakest  earnest  of  a life  be- 
yond the  grave — were  the  same  in  eadh.  The  Roman  emperor 
had  done  his  work,  and  the  only  thing  that  remained  for  him  to 
do  was  to  die  like  an  emperor  and  like  a man.  Lawrence, 
whether  he  felt  it  or  not — and  it  is  hardly  possible  that  he  did 
not  feel  it — had  but  just  finished  the  preparation  for  his  great 
work. 


IS37-40 


LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA. 


113 


Something  ere  the  end, 

Some  work  of  noble  note  may  yet  be  done, 

Not  unbecoming  men  that  strove  with  gods. 

Tho’  much  is  taken,  much  abides,  and  tho’ 

We  are  not  now  that  strength  which  in  old  days 
Moved  earth  and  heaven  ; that  which  we  are,  we  are ; 

One  equal  temper  of  heroic  hearts, 

Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will, 

To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 

Such  were  the  thoughts  that  John  Lawrence  may  well  have  had 
in  his  mind.  If  they,  or  anything  like  them,  did  occur  to  him, 
he  read  in  them  his  own  character  correctly  enough.  If  they 
did  not,  the  spirit,  the  mettle,  the  temper  they  imply  were  still 
there,  and  in  any  case,  he  lived  long  enough  abundantly  to 
justify  them. 

As  soon  as  he  was  sufficiently  recovered  from  his  illness  to  bear 
the  fatigue  of  moving,  he  was  driven  down,  for  the  last  time, 
through  the  ‘ familiar  streets  of  old  ruinous  Etawa  ’ to  the  ghaut, 
was  put  on  board  a boat,  and,  in  company  with  his  friend, 
Major  Wroughton,  who  had  helped  to  nurse  him  through  his 
illness,  dropped  down  the  ‘clear,  cold  stream  of  the  Jumna’  to 
Allahabad.  Here  he  rejoined  his  colleague  Cumine,  who  had 
gone  thither  in  a country  cargo-boat  shortly  before,  and  had 
spent  a fortnight  on  the  voyage.  On  November  19  they  all  set 
off  again  down  the  Ganges  for  Calcutta.  The  change  of  air  and 
rest  brought  back  health  and  strength  apace,  and  gave  them 
after  their  long  starvation,  as  Cumine  expressed  it,  the  ‘ap- 
petite of  an  ostrich.’  At  Ghazeepore  they  met  Robert  Tucker, 
who  was  afterwards  murdered  in  his  own  house  during  the 
Mutiny.  They  spent  one  day  with  him,  a second  at  Dinapore, 
and  a third  at  Monghir,  walking  about  ‘ its  grassy  plain,  for- 
merly the  bustling  interior  of  the  fort.’  One  night  they  passed 
at  Chandernagore,  and  they  arrived  in  Calcutta,  at  Spence’s 
Hotel,  on  December  22.  Here  John  Lawrence  had  a dangerous 
relapse,  and  on  his  recovery  he  was  ordered  by  his  doctor  to  go 
on  furlough  for  three  years,  and  after  a three  months’  stay  in  Cal- 
cutta necessitated  by  his  weak  state,  and  another  three  months 
spent  on  the  voyage  home,  he  arrived  in  England  in  June,  1840. 

Here,  then,  ends  the  first  stage  of  John  Lawrence’s  Indian 
career,  the  period  of  his  training  and  probation.  He  had  passed 
through  all  the  grades  of  a young  civilian’s  education,  not  in 
Vol.  I. — 8 


“LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1837-40 


1 14 

their  regular  order,  but,  as  often  happened  in  the  Delhi  terri- 
tory, piled  one  upon  the  other  and  mixed  up  together  in  such  a 
way  as  to  give  him  the  greatest  possible  amount  and  variety  of 
experience  in  the  smallest  possible  space  of  time.  He  was  for- 
tunate, certainly,  in  the  places  to  which  he  had  been  posted — 
Delhi, Paniput,  Gorgaon,  Etawa — and  he  was  fortunate  also,  on 
the  whole,  in  the  men  with  whom,  whether  as  his  superiors  or 
his  colleagues,  he  had  hitherto  been  brought  into  contact.  But 
here  the  work  of  fortune  ended.  His  own  energy,  his  own  en- 
durance, his  own  courage,  his  own  self-reliance,  his  own  enthu- 
siasm for  work,  above  all,  his  own  sympathy  with  the  natives, 
had  done  all  the  rest.  If  in  these  first  ten  years  he  had  risen,  as 
one  who  had  the  best  right  to  speak  expressed  it,  ‘ half  a head 
above  his  fellows,’  he  owed  that  rise  not  to  high  birth  or- patron- 
age or  favour  or  luck  of  any  kind,  but  to  his  own  intrinsic  merits. 
And  perhaps  I cannot  better  end  these  chapters  which  I have 
dedicated  to  the  earlier  and  more  adventurous,  and  probably,  in 
some  respects,  the  happier  part  of  his  career,  than  by  quoting 
the  graphic  sketch  given  of  it  by  one  who  afterwards  served 
under  him  for  many  years  in  the  Punjab,  was  one  of  his  most 
intimate  and  trusted  friends,  and  was  selected  by  him  to  write 
the  life  of  his  illustrious  brother,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 

John  Lawrence  (says  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes)  soon  had  to  leave  head- 
quarters at  Delhi  and  go  out  into  the  district ; and  it  was  there,  away 
from  all  Europeans,  thrown  upon  the  natives  for  help,  obedience,  useful- 
ness, success,  and  even  sympathy,  that  the  John  Lawrence  of  great  days 
was  trained.  He  worked  hard  and  made  his  * omlah’ — native  function- 
ary— do  the  same,  ever  on  the  watch  to  bar  bribery,  by  being  sole  master 
in  his  own  court.  Then  was  his  day  of  details — a day  that  comes  once, 
and  only  once,  to  all  apprentices — and  he  seized  it,  laying  up  a store  of 
knowledge  of  all  kinds,  official,  revenue,  judicial,  social,  agricultural, 
commercial ; learning,  in  fact,  to  know  the  races  which  it  was  his  lot  to 
rule.  Work  over,  out  into  the  fields  with  horse  or  gun  ; for  his  strong 
frame  and  hardy  spirit  loved  wild  sports.  But  ever  an  eye  to  business — 
some  jungle  lair  of  cutthroats  to  be  explored,  some  scene  of  criirte  to  be 
examined  by  the  way,  some  slippery  underling  to  be  surprised.  And  so 
home  at  sunset,  with  fine  appetite  for  the  simple  meal  that  he  eats  who 
has  others  in  the  world  to  help.  After  that  more  air — for  the  nights  are 
hot — an  easy  chair  outside  in  the  bright  moonlight,  with  our  large  John 
in  it,  without  coat  or  waistcoat,  and  shirt-sleeves  up  over  his  elbows,  his 
legs  on  another  chair,  a bowl  of  tea  by  his  side,  and  a tobacco  weed  in 
his  mouth,  smoking  grandly  ; altogether  much  at  home,  a giant  in  the  act 
of  refreshment.  One  by  one  the  greybeards  of  the  district  drop  in  too; 


1837-40  LIFE  AT  GORGAON  AND  ETAWA.  1 1 5 

not  particular  in  dress,  but  just  as  the  end  of  the  day  left  them,  uninvited, 
but  quite  welcome,  and  squat,  Eastern  fashion,  on  their  heels  and  ankles, 
in  a respectfully  feudal  ring,  about  their  Saxon  khan,  each  wishing 
‘peace’  as  he  sits  down.  A pleasant  scene  this  of  human  black  and 
white  mingling  into  grey  under  an  Indian  moon.  The  chat  is  all  about 
the  district  and  the  people,  by-gone  traditions  of  the  last  conquest  by  the 
Moguls,  and  how  they  parcelled  it  out  to  their  great  lords,  who  built 
those  red-brick  towers  near  the  wells,  still  standing,  though  happily  de- 
cayed by  peace  ; the  changes  they  have  all  seen  since  they  were  young  ; 
the  beating  of  the  sword  and  spear  into  the  ploughshare ; the  disappear- 
ance of  that  celebrated  breed  of  long-winded  horses  ; the  increase  of 
buffaloes  ; the  capture  year  by  year,  and  one  by  one,  of  those  renowned 
dacoits,  of  whom  John  Lawrence  himself  rode  down  the  last ; the  great 
famine,  and  which  villages  died  off  and  which  lived  through,  as  witness 
their  present  state,  known  to  all  sitting  here  ; the  debts  and  lawsuits  that 
grew  therefrom,  and  the  endless  case  that’s  coming  on  in  court  to-mor- 
row, about  which  John,  listening,  picks  up  some  truths  ; and  so  on  till 
midnight,  when,  the  air  being  cool  enough  for  sleep,  the  white  khan 
yawns  and  the  dark  elders  take  their  leave,  much  content  with  this  kind 
of  Englishman. 


CHAPTER  V. 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE.  1840—1842. 

The  great  difficulty  with  which  the  biographer  of  John  Law- 
rence has  to  contend  throughout  his  work,  the  absence  of  all 
journals,  and  of  nearly  all  strictly  private  correspondence,  is 
nowhere  more  felt  than  when,  as  now,  at  the  time  of  his  three 
years’  furlough,  his  public  life  crosses  and  becomes  intertwined 
with  that  of  his  family.  It  might  have  been  expected  that  it 
would  have  been  easier,  to  say  the  least,  to  give  an  adequate 
description  of  John  Lawrence  in  the  midst  of  his  family  at 
Clifton  than  to  picture  him,  the  one  white  man  among  thou- 
sands of  dusky  faces  in  the  wilds  of  Paniput  or  among  the  rob- 
ber tribes  of  Gorgaon.  But  such,  unfortunately,  is  not  the 
case.  It  is  only  from  a few  waifs  and  strays  of  information 
which  it  has  probably  cost  me  as  many  weeks  to  collect  and  to 
winnow  as  it  will  take  my  readers  minutes  to  glance  through, 
that  I am  able  to  say  anything  at  all  of  John  Lawrence’s  family, 
of  the  changes  which  lie  must  have  found  in  them,  and  they 
in  him,  after  his  ten  years’  absence,  and  of  the  way  in  which  he 
employed  his  unwonted  time  of  leisure.  And  this  paucity  of 
the  materials  on  which  a biographer  usually  most  depends 
seems  all  the  more  strange,  when  contrasted  with  the  super- 
abundant wealth  of  the  materials  which  the  biographer  of  Sir 
Ilenry  Lawrence  found  ready  to  his  hand.  Besides  the  inestim- 
able advantage  of  an  intimate  and  lifelong  acquaintance  with 
the  subject  of  his  memoir,  and  his  presence  at  many  of  the 
scenes  which  he  describes,  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  appears  to  have 
had  in  his  possession  an  unlimited  number  of  private  letters 
written  by  Sir  Ilenry  Lawrence  to  the  different  members  of  his 
family,  and  by  the  different  members  of  his  family  to  him  ; of 
journals  kept  by  Sir  Henry  himself,  by  his  mother,  and  by  his 
wife  ; finally,  of  letters  written  by  that  talented  wife  to  his  and 
her  friends  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  giving  graphic 
pictures,  drawn  on  the  spot,  of  the  various  actions  in  which  he 


1840-43 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


117 


bore  a part.  Of  all  these  advantages  I am  in  great  part  desti- 
tute, and  all  that  I can  do  is  to  make  the  best  of  such  scanty 
materials  as  I have  been  able  to  get  together. 

It  has  been  suggested,  whether  malevolently  or  otherwise,  as 
an  explanation  of  the  abundance  of  materials  for  the  inner  life 
of  Henry  and  of  their  paucity  for  that  of  John,  that,  in  quite 
early  days,  the  friends  and  relations  of  the  elder  brother  fore- 
saw that  he  would  be  a great  man,  while  they  failed  to  descry 
any  indications  of  a brilliant  future  in  the  younger  ; they  there- 
fore preserved  the  letters  of  the  one  and  destroyed  those  of  the 
other.  There  may  be  some  truth  in  this,  for  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  John  was  of  a tardier  development  than  Henry,  and 
that  some  of  the  qualities  which  fascinated  people  most  in  the 
elder  brother  were  wanting  in  the  younger,  or  at  all  events  lay 
deeper  beneath  the  surface.  But,  apart  from  this,  the  differ- 
ences in  the  character  and  temperament  of  the  two  brothers 
will  go  far,  I think,  to  account  for  the  different  nature  of  their 
correspondence.  Henry,  his  brain  seething  with  half-developed 
thoughts  and  his  heart  stirred  by  warm  and  over-mastering 
emotions,  found  habitual  relief  in  pouring  them  forth  in  letters. 
John  felt  no  such  need,  or  not  to  the  same  degree.  He  seldom 
wrote  without  an  immediate  and  practical  object.  When  this 
was  to  be  secured  his  pen  was  that  of  a forcible  as  well  as  of  a 
ready  writer.  And  once  more  it  will  be  remembered,  also,  that 
the  letters  which  he  did  write  continuously  throughout  his  life 
to  his  favourite  sister,  and  in  which  he,  undoubtedly,  did  pour 
out  without  restraint  all  that  he  thought  and  felt,  were,  as  I 
have  already  related,  deliberately  destroyed  by  him  after  her 
death. 

John  Lawrence  reached  his  home  at  Clifton.  But  it  was  not 
the  home  which  he  had  left.  No  one,  I suppose,  ever  returned 
to  his  home  after  an  absence  of  ten  years,  especially  if  his  fam- 
ily happened  to  have  been  a large  one,  without  finding  at  least 
as  much  cause  to  miss  the  absent  as  to  rejoice  in  those  that  are 
present.  Of  those  who  loved  him,  and  whom  he  loved  best,  he 
will  be  likely  to  find 

That  the  old  friends  all  are  fled, 

And  the  young  friends  all  are  wed, 

and  that,  even  of  those  who  are  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
some  at  least  will  necessarily  be  dead  to  him.  Ten  years  are 
a large  slice,  as  many  a returned  Anglo-Indian  has  found  to  his 


1 18 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1840-42 


cost,  of  the  allotted  threescore  and  ten,  and  the  gap  made  by 
them  in  interests  and  occupations  and  sympathies,  even  be- 
tween hearts  that  are  naturally  loving  and  sympathetic,  is  so 
wide  that  the  currents  of  life,  which  have  issued  from  the  same 
fountain-head,  and  are  destined,  it  may  be,  like  the  two  great 
rivers  of  China,  to  approach  one  another  again  towards  their 
close,  are  often  found,  in  the  dead  level  of  middle  life,  to  be 
meandering,  like  those  same  two  rivers,  in  channels  which  are 
far  apart. 

Two  great  changes  had  taken  place  in  the  Clifton  home  since 
John  Lawrence  had  left  it.  The  fine  old  father,  who  had  enter- 
tained his  son  during  his  youthful  walks  with  so  many  stories 
of  his  adventurous  campaigns,  and  who  might,  had  he  lived, 
have  listened  now  in  his  turn,  in  the  chair  of  dozing  age,  to 
stories  of  adventures  at  least  as  strange  and  as  stirring  from  the 
lips  of  that  same  son,  had  ended  his  rugged  life  in  peace  in  May, 
1835,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three.  His  eldest  son  Alexander, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  his  favourite,  had  returned  from  Madras 
just  in  time  to  gladden  his  father’s  eyes,  and  then  to  close  them 
in  death. 

The  other  change  was  almost  as  great.  John’s  eldest  sister 
Letitia,  whose  pre-eminent  claims  on  their  affection  and  respect 
had  from  their  earliest  youth  been  so  promptly  recognised  by 
all  her  brothers,  had  herself  left  the  parental  home,  and  married 
a venerable  old  clergyman,  Mr.  Hayes,  who  seems  to  have  been 
unknown  to  the  family  before. 

Happily  the  kind  and  simple-hearted  mother  whom  I have 
described  at  the  outset  of  this  biography,  was  still  living  and  in 
comparative  comfort,  though  not  upon  the  fortune  left  her  by 
her  husband.  Ever  ready,  as  he  had  been  in  his  Irish  generos- 
ity, to  share  his  last  crust  or  his  last  shilling  with  a friend,  the 
old  veteran  had  left  her  nothing  but  his  name,  his  spirit  and  his 
sons.  She  was  living  therefore  on  the  proceeds  of  a fund 
which,  all  unknown  to  her,  had,  for  years  past,  been  gradually 
accumulating,  from  the  contributions  of  her  four  gallant  sons 
— not  one  of  whom  had  more  than  a bare  sufficiency  of  this 
world’s  goods — in  India.  It  was  called  by  them  the  ‘ Lawrence 
Fupd,’  and  had  been  started  in  the  first  instance  by  Henry.  It 
was  Henry  who — to  quote  the  words  of  a letter  of  his  own — 
‘had  rather  dunned’ the  more  tardy  and  cautious  John  into 
taking  it  up  at  first,  but  had  soon  found,  as  the  same  letter 
generously  goes  on  to  acknowledge,  that,  once  committed  to  the 


1840-42  FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE.  119 

scheme,  John  had  put  ‘all  the  other  brothers  to  shame’  by  the 
zeal  that  he  had  thrown  into  it.  It  was  John  henceforward 
who  managed  the  fund,  who  contributed  largely  to  it,  who  di- 
rected the  successive  investments,  and,  more  than  this,  acted  as 
the  financier  of  the  family  generally. 

Henry,  lavishly  generous,  like  his  father,  of  his  money  and 
careless  of  the  future,  would  not,  as  he  often  admitted,  have 
saved  the  barest  competency  for  his  wife  and  family  had  it  not 
been  for  his  brother  John’s  taking  his  affairs  in  hand.  John, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  a sense  of  the  true  value  of  money.  He 
was  not  niggardly — far  from  it,  as  one  or  two  out  of  a hundred 
anecdotes  which  I hope  hereafter  to  quote  will  show.  He  was 
at  all  times  most  generous.  But  his  generosity  was  tempered 
by  prudence,  and  by  a sense  of  the  relative  claims  of  others  upon 
him.  And,  better  far  than  being  prodigal  of  his  money,  he  was 
prodigal  of  the  pains  that  he  took  in  saving  and  in  securing  it 
for  other  people.  He  managed  in  this  way,  purely  as  a labour 
of  love,  the  incomes  of  a large  number  of  persons  quite  uncon- 
nected with  him,  who  were  unable,  or  thought  they  were  un- 
able, to  manage  them  for  themselves. 

A third  change  in  the  family  at  Clifton  must  not  be  passed 
over.  The  old  nurse  Margaret,  who  had  tended  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  from  infancy  up  to  manhood,  whose  room 
had  been  a sanctuary  of  peace  and  tenderness  and  repose  in  a 
somewhat  stiff  and  stern  household,  and  who  had,  of  course, 
continued  to  live  on  with  the  family  long  after  her  proper  work 
was  done,  as  the  member  most  indispensable  to  each  and  all  of 
them,  had  passed  away.  There  are  few  ties  more  sacred  and 
more  indissoluble  than  those  which  unite  the  younger,  aye,  and 
the  elder,  members  of  a family  to  an  old  and  trusted  nurse. 
Witness  it  some  of  the  most  exquisite  passages  in  all  literature, 
from  the  time  of  Deborah  the  aged  nurse  of  Rebekah,  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  and  Allon  Bachuth,  ‘ the  oak  of  tears,’  or 
from  Eurykleia,  the  nurse  and  confidante  alike  of  Telemachus 
and  Penelope  in  the  ‘ Odyssey,’  right  down  to  the  ‘ Lord  of  the 
Isles  ’ and  the  ‘ Lady  of  the  Lake,’  or  again  to  Tennyson’s  ‘ nurse 
of  ninety  years,’  whose  true  childward  instincts  tapped  the 
fountain  of  the  newly  widowed  mother’s  tears,  and  reminded 
her  that  her  husband’s  child  was  something  which  made  life 
still  worth  living. 

John  Lawrence  would  have  been  quite  unlike  himself  had  he 
not  felt  the  blank  deeply.  But  it  is  not  the  least  touching  trait 


120 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


840-42 


in  a character  so  strong,  so  active,  so  practical,  and  which  could, 
when  occasion  required,  be  so  stern,  so  unbending,  so  iron, 
that  his  first  journey  after  his  return  to  England  was  a pil- 
grimage to  the  spot  in  a distant  county  in  which  his  old  nurse 
was  buried.  Many  memories  must  have  been  awakened  within 
him  as  he  stood  beside  her  grave,  but  perhaps  none  so  freshly 
as  that  morning  in  Ostend  in  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo, 
when  his  childish  championship  of  his  nurse  disarmed  the  sus- 
picions of  the  magistrate,  and  he  returned  proudly  home  with 
her,  thinking  that  henceforward  he  must  take  charge  of  her 
rather  than  she  of  him.  What  wonder  that  many  years  later, 
in  India,  her  memory  was  still  fresh  within  him,  and  that  he 
could  find  no  fitter  name  for  one  of  his  daughters  than  that  of 
his  old  nurse  Margaret  ? 

How  the  aged  mother  welcomed  her  son  John,  the  chief  man- 
ager of  the  family  purse  and  a generous  contributor  to  her  in- 
come, we  do  not  know  from  any  written  document,  for  I have 
been  unable  to  meet  with  any  letter,  or  entry,  at  all  analogous 
to  that  in  which  she  notes  the  change  which  three  years’  absence 
had  produced  in  her  elder  son  Henry,  when  he  had  first  re- 
turned from  India.  It  is  clear  that  he  did  not  recover  from  the 
effects  of  his  illness  for  some  time.  But  all  the  accounts  which 
have  reached  me,  represent  him  as  in  the  most  exuberant 
spirits,  travelling  about  from  one  country  to  another,  seeing  all 
that  was  to  be  seen,  in  full  pursuit  of  what  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  be  the  leading  object  of  a young  civilian  on  furlough 
from  India,  and  enjoying  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  pursuit,  its 
ups  and  its  downs,  its  hopes  and  its  fears,  in  a way  which  is 
highly  indicative  of  his  good-humoured  frankness  and  manly 
directness  of  character. 

In  August,  two  months  after  he  landed,  we  find  him  at  Glas- 
gow. There  he  met  his  Etawa  friend,  Cumine,  and  took  a tour 
with  him  through  the  Western  Highlands — a tour  which  was 
doubly  interesting  to  him,  as  Sir  Walter  Scott’s  names  and  lo- 
calities were  always  fresh  in  his  memory.  Of  Scott,  indeed,  in 
common  with  so  many  of  his  generation,  he  was  passionately 
and  justly  fond.  His  boyhood  had  been  nursed  upon  ‘ the  great 
enchanter’s’  writings,  especially  upon  the  more  historical  of  his 
novels.  They  were  among  the  few  books  which  he  was  either 
able,  or  disposed,  to  read  in  the  heyday  of  his  working  life  in 
India  ; and  one  of  the  very  last  books  read  to  him  by  his  lady 
secretary,  Miss  Gastcr,  long  after  his  sight  had  gone,  and  not  a 


1 840-42 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


121 


few  premonitory  symptoms  of  his  approaching  end  had  come 
upon  him,  was  ‘Guy  Mannering’ — read  then  for  I am  afraid  to 
say  what  number  of  times  ! 

In  September  he  went  to  Ireland,  and  revisited  Foyle  College 
and  the  ramparts  of  Londonderry.  And  it  was  while  lie  was  on 
a visit  to  Mr.  Young  of  Culdaff  House,  in  County  Donegal,  the 
squire  of  the  parish,  and  near  neighbour  of  its  rector,  the  Rev. 
Richard  Hamilton,  that  he  met  for  the  first  time  the  lady  who 
was  eventually  to  share  his  destinies.  Nothing  appears  to  have 
been  either  said  or  done  then  which  at  all  implied  what  was  to 
follow  a year  later  ; but  ‘ all  the  Hamilton  family  felt  that  a 
new  and  wonderful  element  had  come  into  their  lives,  and  his 
vivacity  and  stories  were  a theme  of  constant  conversation 
among  them.’  The  red-hot  Tory  creed,  in  which  they  had  been 
naturally  brought  up,  received  many  a rough  and  kindly  shock 
from  the  reforming  views  of  the  young  Indian  civilian. 

Later  on  in  the  autumn  John  Lawrence  paid  a visit  to  the 
continent,  and  took  up  his  quarters  for  some  months  at  Bonn 
with  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  George  Lawrence,  whose  husband 
was  in  Afghanistan.  ‘ He  kept  open  house,’  says  Colonel  Ram- 
say, who  met  him  there  for  the  first  time,  ‘ and  was  a great 
favourite  with  many  of  the  students.  Amongst  them  were 
Prince  Holstein,  now  the  King  of  Denmark,  Prince  Frederick 
of  Hesse,  his  future  brother-in-law,  Prince  Mecklenberg- 
Schwerin,  the  present  Sir  Vincent  Corbet,  myself,  and  others, 
and  many  a pleasant  evening  we  passed  in  his  house.  Years 
afterwards,  when  I was  on  the  Headquarters  Staff  at  the  Horse 
Guards,  on  the  arrival  in  this  country  of  Prince  Christian  of 
Denmark,  formerly  Prince  Holstein,  with  his  daughter,  now  the 
Princess  of  Wales,  and  the  Prince  of  Hesse,  they  all,  remember- 
ing me  as  a fellow-student  at  Bonn,  asked  with  much  interest 
what  had  become  of  Mr.  John  Lawrence,  of  whose  hospitalities 
they  retained  so  pleasant  a recollection.’  These  hospitalities, 
it  will  be  easily  understood,  soon  exhausted  his  purse,  which 
was  not  at  that  time  a heavy  one,  and  he  was  obliged  early  in 
the  year  to  return  to  England  and  live  more  economically  among 
his  friends. 

In  the  April  following  he  paid  a fortnight’s  visit  to  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hayes,  who  were  then  living  in  Marlborough  Buildings, 
Bath  ; and  I am  fortunately  able  to  quote  here  some  graphic 
reminiscences  of  him  as  he  then  was,  contributed  by  Mrs.  Ken- 
sington, who  as  a young  girl  was  living  with  Mrs.  Hayes,  and 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


122 


i 840-42 


managed  during  this  fortnight  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a life- 
long friendship  with  him. 

John  Lawrence  (she  says)  spent  a fortnight  in  the  house,  and  the  gen- 
eral impression  which  he  left  on  my  mind  is  one  of  wonderful  energy  and 
straightforward  going  at  whatever  was  to  be  done.  The  two  great  objects 
of  his  life  just  then  were  to  recover  his  health,  and  to  find  a wife  fit  to  be 
a helpmeet  indeed,  and  it  was  the  great  amusement  of  my  sister  and  my- 
self to  watch  the  business-like  way  in  which  he  pursued  both  objects. 
He  still  looked  rather  gaunt  and  ill,  and  as  he  had  already  won  a con- 
siderable reputation  I had  at  first  been  inclined  to  think  him  formid- 
able, till  I saw  him  on  the  sofa  with  his  arm  round  his  sister,  whom  he 
always  called,  ‘ Lettice  dear.’  His  love  for  her  was  a distinguishing 
feature,  and  used  to  be  displayed  in  a way  that  was  surprising  to  those 
who  regarded  her,  as  we  did,  as  a woman  far  removed  from  the  light- 
ness of  ordinary  mortals.  He  would  romp  with  her  and  keep  up  a per- 
petual chaff,  finding  a continual  source  of  fun  in  the  age  and  peculi- 
arities of  Mr.  Hayes,  for  whom  he  had  nevertheless  a great  respect, 
though  he  used  to  take  great  delight  in  teasing  her  about  him,  and  say- 
ing that  he  was  the  very  model  of  a decoy  thug.  His  conversation  was 
always  lively  and  interesting,  abounding  in  anecdotes  of  his  curious 
experiences  in  India,  of  the  natives,  and  of  horses,  of  which  last  he  was 
specially  fond.  He  was  very  indifferent  to  any  of  the  luxuries  of  life  or 
refinements  of  society,  and  disposed  to  mock  at  those  who  laid  much 
stress  on  them  as  necessaries.  A ‘ cakey-man  ’ was  his  favourite  term  of 
contempt  for  anyone  who  pretended  to  much  elegance  and  refinement. 
At  breakfast  it  was  his  habit  to  cut  off  the  crust  of  the  loaf,  and,  having 
made  his  meal  upon  it  and  a single  cup  of  tea,  he  was  ready  for  conver- 
sation, and  would  keep  us  all  amused  with  his  account  of  his  adventures 
the  night  before  at  the  various  parties  he  went  to  in  the  hope  of  meeting 
with  the  possible  wife,  who  was  always  spoken  of  as  ‘ the  calamity.’  He 
had  very  decided  and  clear  ideas  as  to  the  style  of  woman  he  wished  for 
his  companion.  Good  health,  good  temper,  and  good  sense,  were  the 
three  essential  requisites,  and  if  they  happened  to  be  combined  with 
good  looks  so  much  the  better ; but  he  at  once  rejected  all  temptation 
to  be  fascinated  by  the  regular  ball-going  beauties  of  Bath. 

Hath,  it  will  be  recollected,  not  the  least  by  the  readers  of 
Jane  Austen’s  novels,  was  still  then  one  of  the  most  fashionable 
places  in  England. 

His  manners  and  appearance  were  utterly  unlike  the  ordinary  young 
men  we  met  in  Bath.  It  was  difficult  not  to  feel  a little  shocked  at  first 
by  his  roughness  and  absence  of  conventionality;  still  there  was  so  much 
force  and  originality  apparent  in  his  whole  character,  that  one  soon  for- 
got the  defects  of  manner,  and  became  interested  in  his  conversation. 
As  1 remember  him  he  seemed  to  me  to  embody  Professor  Henry 


840-42 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


123 


Morley’s  notion  of  the  qualities  which  have  given  to  Englishmen  their 
proud  position  in  the  world,  namely,  ‘the  determination  to  find  out  the 
right  and  get  it  done  ; find  out  the  wrong  and  get  it  undone.’  I have  a 
lively  recollection  of  the  pains  he  took  to  convince  me  of  the  justice  of 
admitting  Jews  into  Parliament.  Much  of  his  talk  was  about  his  horses 
— how  he  would  keep  them  loose  in  his  tent,  and  how  the  natives  who 
came  in,  always  made  their  salaam  to  the  horse  after  paying  their  re- 
spects to  him.  He  would  tell  also  how,  when  he  wanted  game  to 
shoot,  he  would  set  the  native  musicians  to  play  in  the  woods  to  frighten 
the  pigs.  Later  on  in  the  same  year  (1841)  we  saw  him  again  at  Lyn- 
ton,  in  North  Devon,  where  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hayes  always  spent  the  sum- 
mer. The  matter  of  finding  a ‘calamity’  was  still  undecided,  and  he 
was  still  on  the  search. 

It  was  during  his  stay  at  Lynton  that  John  Lawrence  paid  a 
visit  to  his  friend  and  relative,  the  famous  John  Sterling,  who 
was  then  living  at  Falmouth.  In  the  near  neighbourhood  of 
Falmouth  was  Penjerrick,  the  now  almost  classic  abode  of  the 
Fox  family — the  home  of  everything  that  was  pure  and  lovely 
and  of  good  report.  It  was  not  likely  that  Sterling  would  allow 
John  Lawrence  to  leave  his  house  without  introducing  him  to 
a family  amongst  whom  he  was  so  frequent  and  welcome  a visi- 
tor ; and  in  the  ‘Journals  and  Letters  of  Caroline  Fox,’  one  of 
the  most  lovable  of  women,  I find  the  following  entry  referring 
to  the  visit  of  the  young  Indian  civilian  : — 

1841.  May  10.  Amusing  day.  J.  Sterling  has  a friend  and  connec- 
tion here,  a Mr.  Lawrence,  an  Indian  Judge,  and  he  brought  him  to  call. 
India  the  principal  topic.  Lawrence  was  describing  an  illness  in  which 
he  was  most  tenderly  nursed  and  borne  with  by  his  native  servants. 
‘Yes,’  said  Sterling,  ‘patience,  submission,  and  fortitude  are  the  virtues 
which  characterise  an  enslaved  nation  ; their  magnanimity  and  heroism 
are  all  of  the  passive  kind.’  Lawrence  spoke  of  the  stationary  kind  of 
progress  which  Christianity  was  making  amongst  them.  When  a native 
embraces  this  new  creed,  he  retains  his  old  inveterate  prejudices  and 
superadds  only  the  liberty  of  the  new  faith.  This  Lawrence  has  re- 
peatedly proved,  so  much  so  that  he  would  on  no  account  take  one  of 
these  converts  into  his  service.  All  his  hope  is  in  the  education  of  the 
children,  who  are  bright  and  intelligent.  The  Indians  will  from  polite- 
ness believe  all  you  tell  them,  and  if  you  speak  of  any  of  Christ’s  mir- 
acles, they  make  no  difficulty,  but  directly  detail  one  more  marvellous 
of  which  Mohammed  was  the  author,  and  expect  your  civility  of  cred- 
ence to  keep  pace  with  theirs.  If  you  try  to  convince  them  of  any  ab- 
surdities or  inconsistencies  in  the  Koran,  they  stop  you  with,  ‘Do  you 
think  that  such  an  one  as  I should  presume  to  understand  it  ? ’ Sterl- 
ing remarked,  ‘ Have  you  never  heard  anything  like  that  in  England  ? ’ 


124 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1 840-42 


May  24. — Joseph  Bonaparte,  his  son  and  grandson,  in  the  harbour 
(Falmouth)  ; Barclay  and  Lawrence  visited  them  under  the  shade  of  the 
American  Consulate.  They  shook  hands  and  conversed  with  the  old 
man  for  some  time,  and  admired  exceedingly  for  some  time  the  little 
boy,  who  is  the  image  of  Napoleon.  His  father,  the  Prince  Charles 
Bonaparte,  a fine-looking  man.1 

Once  more,  in  June,  1844,  John  Lawrence  returned  to  Ire- 
land, leaving  the  fashionable  and  ball-going  beauties  of  Bath 
and  Cheltenham  and  Lynton — 

for  some  three  careless  moons 
The  summer  pilots  of  an  empty  heart 
Unto  the  shores  of  nothing 

— without  regret  behind  him  ; and  there,  on  his  renewed  meet- 
ing with  the  young  Irish  maiden,  the  best  part  of  whose  life  had 
been  passed  in  the  wilds  of  Donegal,  and  who  combined,  as 
the  result  proved,  all  the  charms  which  we  usually  associate 
with  a beautiful  Irish  girl — simplicity,  sprightliness,  vivacity, 
and  grace — with  those  more  solid  qualities  which  were  to  make 
her  the  worthy  companion  and  sharer  and  comforter  of  the 
most  laborious  and  heroic  of  lives,  even  to  the  very  end,  he 
found,  as  the  result  of  his  prolonged  ‘ search  ’ among  girls  who 
might  have  momentarily  attracted  him,  that 

Such  touches  were  but  embassies  of  love, 

To  tamper  with  the  feelings  ere  he  found 
Empire  for  life. 

An  empire  for  life  indeed  it  was,  as  the  course  of  this  biog- 
raphy, without,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  lifting  too  much  of  the  veil 
which  hangs,  and  ought  to  hang,  before  the  bridal  chambers  of 
the  heart,  will  abundantly  show.  And  John  Lawrence  found 
that  love  henceforward  not  only  ruled  his  life,  but  trebled  it 
within  him. 

But  of  what  stock  did  Harriette  Catherine  Hamilton  come  ? 
There  is  no  part  of  a biography  which  is  apt  to  appear  so  tedious 
and  unnecessary  to  the  general  reader  as  the,  perhaps,  inevitable 
paragraphs  which  give  the  genealogy  of  its  subject.  Yet  even 
the  most  democratic  of  critics  will  admit  that  family  and 
descent  count  for  not  a little  in  the  formation  of  character. 
While  I avoid,  therefore,  such  details  as  may  be  found  in  Sir 

> Caroline  Fox:  Her  Journals  and  Letters , p.  238,  etc.  Edited  by  Horace  N. 
Pym.  Smith,  Elder,  & Co.  1882. 


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125 


Bernard  Burke  and  similar  authorities,  I propose  to  say  just  so 
much  of  the  ancestry  and  antecedents  of  the  Mrs.  John  Law- 
rence that  was  to  be,  as  may  show  the  kind  of  family  in  which 
her  husband  was  to  find  so  worthy  a companion. 

The  Hamiltons,  offshoots  of  the  ducal  family  of  that  name  in 
Scotland,  had  first  crossed  into  Ireland  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  One  of  them,  who  had  done  good  service  to  King 
James  in  the  country  of  his  adoption,  was  rewarded  by  him  with 
large  estates  in  County  Down,  and  was  created  Viscount  Clan- 
deboye  and  Dufferin.  His  other  brothers  also  became  large 
landowners  in  Ireland,  and  from  one  of  these  Harriette  Hamil- 
ton was  directly  descended.  Her  grandfather,  James  Hamilton, 
of  Sheep  Hill  in  County  Dublin,  is  said  to  have  married  three 
times,  and  to  have  been  blessed  with  a family  of  truly  patri- 
archial  dimensions.  Sir  Bernard  Burke  credits  him  with  thirty- 
six  sons  and  daughters  ; but  the  family  tradition  runs  that  there 
were  thirty-nine  in  all — a tradition  confirmed  by  the  witticisms 
current  at  the  time,  some  of  which,  turning  on  the  Protestant 
orthodoxy  of  a family  which  owed  so  much  to  it,  compared  them 
to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  ; while  others,  taking  the  prudential 
view,  suggested  that  they  were  more  akin  to  the  ‘forty  stripes 
save  one  ! ’ 

Richard  Hamilton,  Harriette’s  father,  was  first  presented  to  if 
living  ten  miles  from  Dublin,  in  County  Meath.  Like  many 
of  the  livings  of  the  good  old  times,  it  was  considered  to  be  a 
good  living  because  there  was  so  little  to  do  in  it.  But  the  new 
rector  was  a man  of  great  energy  and  courage,  who,  when  he 
found  that  he  had  no  work  to  do,  would  be  sure  to  make  it  for 
himself ; and,  having  been  appointed  a justice  of  the  peace,  he 
found  a field  for  his  superabundant  energies  in  playing,  like 
his  future  son-in-law,  the  Collector-Magistrate  of  Delhi,  the 
double  role  of  policeman  and  magistrate. 

At  that  time  the  county  of  Meath  was  sadly  disturbed  by  a 
combination  of  agrarian  conspirators  called  ‘ carders  ’ — men  who 
tortured  their  victims  with  an  implement  armed  with  long  steel 
teeth  like  the  ‘ cards  ’ used  for  dressing  wool.  Their  outrages 
had  produced  great  consternation  in  the  district,  and  every 
effort  was  required  to  suppress  them. 

Every  night — says  a son  of  his,  the  present  Archdeacon  Hamilton — 
my  father  used  to  leave  his  home,  sometimes  at  the  head  of  a small  party, 
sometimes  accompanied  only  by  one  trusted  servant,  his  factotum,  An- 
drew Rabb.  These  night  expeditions  were  much  disliked  by  his  house- 


126 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 840-42 


hold,  who  lived  in  dread  from  the  moment  that  the  chain  and  bars  were 
closed  across  the  hall  door  till  the  return  of  their  master  in  the  early 
morning ; and  many  an  amusing  story  he  used  to  tell  us  of  his  adven- 
tures in  these  patrols.  Among  others,  one  especially  recurs  to  my 
memory.  With  his  trusted  attendant  he  came  by  chance  upon  a noto- 
rious offender,  for  whom  search  had  long  been  made,  and  succeeded  in 
apprehending  him.  The  capture  took  place  at  a great  distance  from  his 
home,  and  in  an  unfrequented  road  which  offered  abundant  opportuni- 
ties for  escape.  My  father  and  Rabb  were  both  of  them  stout  large 
men,  and  well  mounted,  but  their  prisoner  was  nimble  as  a hare,  and 
the  difficulty  was  to  prevent  his  escape  on  the  way  back.  While  my 
father  held  the  two  horses,  Rabb  clung  like  grim  death  to  his  prisoner 
but  exclaimed  while  doing  so,  ‘ We  shall  never  be  able  to  get  him  safe 
home.’  My  father,  quick  in  resource,  replied,  ‘ Cut  the  waistband  of 
his  breeches,’  these  being  the  nether  garments  universally  worn  at  that 
day,  and  still  worn  by  many  of  the  peasants  in  County  Meath.  This 
done,  their  prisoner,  finding  himself,  despite  his  agility,  unable  to  run  or 
jump,  surrendered  at  discretion,  and  before  morning  was  safely  lodged 
in  jail. 

Would  that  there  were  a few  hundred  men  like  Richard 
Hamilton  in  the  outlying  districts  of  Ireland  now  ! How  many 
outrages  would  a Spartan  rampart  of  this  kind  have  rendered 
impossible  or  promptly  punished  ; how  many  measures  of  coer- 
cion would  it  have  rendered  unnecessary ! What  dismay  and 
panic  would  the  neighbourhood  of  one  such  man  spread  among 
the  miserable  creatures  whose  highest  deed  of  prowess  is  to 
lurk  in  groups,  with  blackened  faces,  for  their  unprotected  vic- 
tims behind  a loopholed  wall,  or  to  maim  and  mutilate  the  un- 
offending cattle  of  those  who  have  had  the  courage  and  the 
honesty  to  discharge  their  obligations  ! In  the  year  1815,  this 
energetic  guardian  of  civil  order  married  Catherine  Tipping,  a 
girl  of  great  personal  attractions  and  charm  of  manner.  And 
a few  years  later — those  being  the  days  of  pluralism — he  was 
given  the  two  rich  livings  of  Culdaff  and  Cloncha  in  County 
Donegal,  and  he  moved  with  his  infant  family  from  the  rich  and 
populous  county  of  Meath,  within  ten  miles  of  Dublin,  to  the 
remote  and  bleak  coast  of  Ulster.  The  young  wife’s  heart,  it  is 
said,  sank  within  her  when  she  first  came  in  sight  of  her  new 
home,  and  she  burst  into  a flood  of  tears.  But  these  were  first 
impressions  only,  and  the  warm  hearts  of  the  friends  she  found, 
and  the  friends  she  made  there,  proved  to  be  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  bleakness  and  solitude  of  its  first  aspect.  She  soon  came 
to  love  Donegal  for  its  own  sake,  and  was  loved  by  the  people 


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FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


127 


in  turn.  It  was  in  this  fine  bracing  climate,  with  its  beautiful 
and  bold  sea-coast,  that  Harriette  Hamilton  spent  her  earliest 
years.  Her  one  sister  had  been  married  to  Dr.  Evory  Kennedy, 
an  hereditary  friend  of  the  family,  whose  interesting  reminiscen- 
ces of  his  own  and  of  the  Lawrences’  school-days  I have  already 
quoted  ; and  the  chief  events  in  her  quiet  life  were  henceforward 
her  visits  to  her  sister’s  home  in  Dublin,  and  the  periodical  return 
of  her  two  brothers  from  school  and  college  for  their  vacation. 

Few  girls  (she  says)  lived  in  a more  simple  way,  but  I was  very  happy, 
and  enjoyed  an  active  out-of-door  life,  taking  in  health  and  strength. 
My  mother  was  very  delicate,  and  I had  plenty  to  do  in  looking  after 
her  and  my  father,  who  had  then  become  an  invalid.  I used  to  read  a 
good  deal  with  my  mother,  and  although  girls  of  the  present  day  would 
have  thought  this  a dull  life,  somehow  or  other  I never  felt  it  so.  Our 
pleasures  were  few  and  simple,  but,  such  as  they  were,  we  thoroughly 
enjoyed  them,  and  our  home  was  most  truly  a happy  one.  My  mother’s 
life  was  full  of  interest,  for  she  helped  my  father  in  all  his  work.  I well 
remember  going  about  among  the  poor  with  her,  and  how  she  was  wel- 
comed and  loved  by  them  all.  My  father  was,  I think,  more  liberal  in 
his  views  than  the  clergy  of  his  day  in  Ireland  usually  were,  for  he 
warmly  approved  of  the  National  Education  movement,  and  was  always 
on  good  terms  with  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  of  the  county.  My 
mother  would  visit  among  the  Roman  Catholics  as  well  as  amongst  our 
own  people,  and  the  priests  never  made  any  objection. 

Thus  Harriette  Hamilton’s  early  life  passed  peacefully  on  till 
the  arrival  of  John  Lawrence  with  his  unbounded  vivacity,  his 
marked  originality  of  character,  his  splendid  physique , and  his 
stories  of  Indian  adventure — with  which  the  hunter-down  of 
the  ‘ carders  ’ of  Meath  must  have  had  not  a little  personal  sym- 
pathy— came  across  its  calm  and  even  current.  The  engagement 
lasted  two  months  only,  and  on  August  26,  1841,  the  marriage 
took  place.  It  was  of  course  a great  event  in  the  little  parish  ; 
and  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  came 
from  far  and  near  to  do  honour  to  the  bride  and  her  family. 

A marriage  is  never  to  those  who  look  below  the  surface  a 
time  of  unmixed  gladness.  To  the  family  principally  concerned 
a wedding  is  only  less  solemn  and  less  melancholy  than  a fu- 
neral. If  new  ties  are  formed,  old  ones  are  inevitably  broken  ; 
and  that  two  people  may  have  a happy  future,  many  more  than 
two  have  to  break  a chief  link  with  a happy  past.  The  common 
saying  that  the  parents  of  the  bride  do  not  lose  a daughter,  but 
only  gain  a son,  seldom  wholly  true,  is  never  less  true  than  in 


128 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1840-42 


the  case  of  a marriage  with  an  Indian  official.  Here  the  pa- 
rents lose  their  daughter,  and  the  mere  distance  of  her  future 
home  precludes  them  from  feeling  that  they  have,  in  any  true 
sense  of  the  word,  gained  a son.  Such  a marriage,  therefore, 
puts  the  unselfish  love  of  the  parents  to  the  severest  possible 
test.  But  it  was  a test  which  the  Hamilton  parents  were  able 
to  stand  ; and  they  would  not  allow,  so  far  as  they  could  help 
it,  the  shadow  of  a shade  to  rest  upon  their  daughter’s  happi- 
ness. The  day  of  the  wedding  was — for  the  Irish  climate — a 
fine  one,  and  John  Lawrence  and  his  wife  have  often  laughed 
together  since  over  the  rapid  come-down  which  they  underwent 
— the  start  in  a carriage  and  four,  amidst  the  cheering  and 
shouting  and  loving  wishes  that  followed  them  ; while,  on  the 
second  day,  the  carriage  and  four  was  reduced  to  a carriage 
and  pair ; and  that,  again,  on  the  third  day,  to  a jaunting-car 
and  single  horse  ! 

To  the  unique  and  lifelong  happiness  of  the  union  thus  ce- 
mented, the  whole  course  of  this  biography  will  bear  witness, 
direct  or  indirect.  I will  quote  here  two  testimonies  only,  and 
both  shall  be  those  of  John  Lawrence  himself — the  one  con- 
scious and  deliberate,  the  other  wholly  unpremeditated  and  al- 
most unconscious.  In  the  fragment  of  the  autobiography 
which  I have  so  often  quoted,  and  which  was  written,  as  I 
gather,  about  thirty  years  later,  towards  the  close  of  his  Vice- 
royalty, he  writes  : ‘In  August,  1841,  I took  perhaps  the  most 
important,  and  certainly  the  happiest,  step  in  my  life — in  get- 
ting married.  My  wife  has  been  to  me  everything  that  a man 
could  wish  or  hope  for.’ 

The  other  testimony  is  still  more  to  the  point,  because,  as  I 
have  said,  it  is  unconscious,  and,  in  its  neatness  and  its  intensity, 
is  eminently  characteristic  of  the  man.  John  Lawrence  was 
sitting  one  evening  in  his  drawing-room  at  Southgate,  with  his 
wife,  his  sister  Letitia,  and  other  members  of  the  family,  and 
all  of  them  were  engaged  in  reading.  Looking  up  from  his 
book,  in  which  he  had  been  engrossed,  he  discovered,  to  his  sur- 
prise, that  his  wife  had  left  the  room.  ‘Where’s  mother?’  said 
he  to  one  of  his  daughters.  ‘ She’s  upstairs,’  replied  the  girl. 
He  returned  to  his  book,  and,  looking  up  again  a few  minutes 
later,  put  the  same  question  to  his  daughter,  and  received  the 
same  answer.  Once  more  he  returned  to  his  reading,  and  once 
more  he  looked  up  with  the  same  question  on  his  lips.  His 
sister  Letitia  here  broke  in,  ‘Why,  really,  John,  it  would  seem 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


1840-42 


129 


as  if  you  could  not  get  on  for  five  minutes  without  your  wife.’ 
‘That’s why  I married  her,’  replied  he. 

The  honeymoon  was  spent  on  the  Continent.  In  a tour, 
which  lasted  from  September,  1841,  to  the  following  March,  John 
Lawrence  and  his  wife  visited  Belgium,  France,  Switzerland,  and 
Italy.  The  birthday  of  the  bride  (November  14)  was  celebrated 
at  Florence,  and  they  reached  Rome  towards  the  close  of  the 
month.  The  mornings  there  were  occupied  in  vigorous  sight- 
seeing, and  the  evenings  in  as  vigorous  studies  in  Italian,  till  the 
unhealthy  climate  produced  the  effect  that  might  have  been  ex- 
pected on  a constitution  which  had  not  yet  quite  recovered  from 
the  still  worse  climate  of  India  ; and  a letter  of  John  Lawrence’s 
to  his  friend  Cumine  speaks  regretfully  of  his  inability  to  enjoy 
life  in  a place  where  there  was  so  much  to  see  and  do  as  in  Rome.’ 
.They  were  accompanied  during  a part  of  their  tour  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hayes.  ‘The  honeymoon  is  past,’  says  Letitia,  writing  to 
a friend,  ‘and  I have  not  seen  a frown  on  either  brow.  I find 
my  brother  can  love  his  wife,  and  his  sister  none  the  less.’ 

The  terrible  news  of  the  rising  of  the  Afghan  tribes  on  our 
demoralised  army  at  Cabul,  and  of  his  brother  George’s  captiv- 
ity and  too  probable  death,  reached  John  Lawrence  at  Naples, 
and  must  have  brought  something  more  than  ‘ a frown  ’ to  his 
brow.  And  in  a letter,  dashed  off  in  the  hottest  haste  to  his 
sister-in-law,  the  wife  of  his  brother  Henry,  he  writes  as  follows. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  want  of  grammar  is  appalling.  But, 
as  in  the  well-known  letter  written  off  by  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough to  his  wife  after  the  battle  of  Blenheim,  where  spelling 
and  grammar  were,  naturally  enough,  thrown  to  the  winds,  these 
signs  of  excitement  add  something  to  its  historical  interest.  It 
is  the  first  letter  in  which  he  alludes  to  Afghanistan — a subject 
which  was  seldom  afterwards  to  be  long  absent  from  his  mind — 
whether  he  was  following  in  spirit,  a few  weeks  later,  from  Eng- 
land the  march  of  the  ‘army  of  vengeance’;  whether,  as  chief 
ruler  of  the  Punjab,  he  was  primarily  responsible  for  the  safety 
of  that  most  difficult,  and  perhaps  ‘ unscientific,’  but  certainly, 
under  his  care,  well-defended  frontier ; whether,  as  Governor- 
General,  he  was  taking  precautions  to  avoid  all  entanglement 
with  its  internal  politics  ; or  whether,  once  more,  he  was  protest- 
ing, as  he  did  protest  with  his  latest  breath,  against  a policy 
which — whether  he  was  right  or  wrong — he  thought  to  be  im- 
politic and  unjust,  certain  to  involve  calamities  like  those  of 
which  he  had  heard  thirty  years  before  when  he  was  at  Naples, 
Vol.  I. — 9 


130 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1840-42 


and  dangerous  to  the  security  of  our  whole  Indian  Empire. 
The  letter,  therefore,  is  interesting  alike  from  a psychological 
and  from  a historical  point  of  view,  and  I give  it  without  any 
attempt  to  improve  its  grammar  or  punctuation.  The  sense  is 
generally  clear  enough. 

Naples : March  23,  1842. 

My  dear  Honoria,  I hardly  know  how  to  write  to  you  the  last  mail  has 
brought  us  such  dreadful  accounts  the  death  of  Sir  Wm.  [MacnaghtenJ 
poor  George’s  imprisonment  and  probable  death  and  the  reported  de- 
struction of  the  whole  Cabul  army.  Is  certainly  an  amount  of  dreadful 
which  has  seldom  come  from  India  certainly  never  in  my  mind.  The 
papers  seem  to  think  that  neither  George’s  nor  MacKenzie’s  life  were 
safe,  I think  that  as  they  did  not  kill  them  at  the  moment  of  seizure  they 
will  spare  their  lives  to  exchange  for  their  own  prisoners.  We  are  all 
here  prepared  for  the  worst,  tho  as  long  as  there  is  life  there  is  hope.  It 
seems  that  the  whole  business  was  dreadfully  mismanaged — the  allowing 
the  supplies  to  be  in  a place  where  they  could  be  cut  off — the  dividing 
the  force  ; with  a river  without  Bridge  between  them  and  lastly  the  con- 
suming and  wasting  the  morale  of  the  force  in  desultory  attacks,  instead 
of  attacking  them  at  once.  Altogether  shows  a want  of  management.  I 
trust  that  the  rumours  of  the  force  being  attacked  and  destroyed  subse- 
quent to  their  evacuation  will  not  prove  true.  It  would  seem  to  me  to 
have  been  most  feasible  to  have  retreated  through  the  open  country  to 
Ghuzni.  You  may  fancy  our  anxiety  for  news.  The  general  feeling 
previous  to  this  disaster  was  that  the  sooner  we  get  out  of  Afghanistan 
the  better  and  Lord  Ellenborough  was  said  to  have  gone  out  with  these 
views.  I do  not  think  now  that  we  can  leave  the  country  without  wip- 
ing off  our  disgrace — however  enough  of  this.  I propose  leaving  Naples 
on  the  28th  if  the  weather  is  fine  for  Marseilles  by  steam  and  thence  to 
Paris  where  I shall  be  two  days,  and  then  to  England.  I am  anxious  to 
be  there  to  look  after  Charlie  and  her  chicks  in  the  event  of  poor  George’s 
being  no  more.  I heard  from  Mr.  S.  a couple  of  days  ago  it  seemed  they 
had  not  then  told  her  of  the  dreadful  news — should  George  be  gone  I am 
his  executor  . . . what  you  do  pray  write  to  me  as  Henry  will  have 

little  time  for  such  things  pray  keep  him  out  of  Afghanistan  if  you  can 
help  it.  I wish  I was  back  in  India  all  my  thoughts  and  feelings  are 
there.  I am  heartily  tired  of  Italy.  Letitia  and  Mr.  Hayes  travel  back 
by  land  and  probably  will  not  be  in  England  before  June.  They  say 
eleven  thousand  troops  are  to  be  sent  out  to  India  though  what  is  wanted 
with  so  many  I don’t  see  except  with  China.  I don’t  think  we  have  seen 
the  last  of  that  business — it  seems  quite  interminable.  This  letter  goes 
direct  to  Naples  in  the  consul’s  bag.  I wrote  two  or  three  by  that  route. 
Mind  and  write  any  particulars  which  transpire  about  George.  I still 
live  in  hope  that  he  may  survive. 

Yours  ever  affectionately, 

John. 


I S40-42 


FURLOUGH  AND  MARRIAGE. 


131 

On  the  same  day,  and  across  the  same  sheet  of  paper,  his 
sister  Letitia  writes  in  similar,  but  naturally  more  vehement, 
strains  of  distress. 

* The  calamities  of  India  have  at  last  opened  upon  our  family, 
and  one  of  the  best  and  least  selfish  is  the  first  victim.  The  vial 
is  opened,  but  when  and  where  will  it  close  ? I get  up  in  the 
morning  with  fresh  hope  after  communion  with  our  abiding  and 
unchanging  Guide  and  Surety,  but  throughout  the  day  the 
feeble  heart  sinks,  and  all  seems  the  blackness  of  despair.’  Then, 
fearing  that  her  other  brother  Henry's  turn  would  come  next, 
she  turns  in  an  agony  of  grief  to  him,  implores  him  to  return  to 
England,  telling  him  that  he  will  be  sure  to  find  work  to  do  at 
home,  and  that  all  her  own  and  her  husband’s  property  would 
be  willingly  shared  with  him  and  his.  ‘ So  come  back,  be- 
loved ones,  come  back  ; our  poor  mother ! I cannot  bear  to 
think  of  her.  I know  the  manner  of  her  grief.  As  to  the  poor 
wife,  what  can  be  said  for  so  huge  a sorrow  ? ’ 

And  so  the  honeymoon  ended,  as  it  did  for  so  many  others  in 
that  sad  year,  in  sore  anxiety,  in  sickening  fears  and  almost 
more  sickening  hopes — for  they  were  to  be  hopes  long  deferred 
— among  all  the  branches  of  the  Lawrence  family.  John  Law- 
rence and  his  wife  hurried  back  to  London  to  be  ready,  in  case 
their  worst  fears  should  prove  true,  to  take  charge  of  the  widow 
and  her  children.  But  here  he  was  seized  with  a long  and 
dangerous  illness  which  made  his  doctors  tell  him  that  he  must 
give  up  all  idea  of  returning  to  India.  This  was  serious  news 
enough,  for  his  leave  was  drawing  to  a close  ; there  was  no  ap- 
parent opening  for  him  in  England,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
come  to  a decision  at  once.  With  his  intense  interest  in  his 
work  in  India,  it  did  not  probably  cost  him  much  to  say  that, 
whatever  the  risk  might  be,  he  was  resolved  to  run  it.  ‘ If  I 
can’t  live  in  India,’  was  his  characteristic  remark,  ‘ I must  go 
and  die  there.’ 

On  his  partial  recovery  he  went  over  to  Ireland  for  a change, 
and  paid  a farewell  visit  to  his  wife’s  relations.  He  spent  Sep- 
tember at  Clifton  with  his  aged  mother,  whose  heart  was  glad- 
dened by  the  sight  of  ‘ nine  of  her  children,  and  ten  of  her 
grandchildren  ’ assembled  around  her,  and  he  sailed  from  South- 
ampton for  India,  by  the  Overland  Route,  on  October  1.  It  was 
the  last  meeting,  as  neither  of  them  could  have  failed  to  antici- 
pate, between  the  mother  and  the  son,  but  the  pang  of  parting 
was  lessened,  at  least  to  her  motherly  heart,  by  the  knowledge 


132 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1840-42 


that  he  was  not  returning  to  India  alone.  ‘ To  see  you  happily 
married/  she  had  written  to  him  while  he  was  at  Etawa  in  June, 
1839,  ‘will  gladden  my  old  heart  ere  I quit  life  and  on  the 
day  before  his  marriage  (on  August  25,  1841)  she  had  thus 
poured  out  her  feelings  in  a letter  to  her  son  Henry  : ‘ I can- 
not express  how  rejoiced  I am  that  he  [John]  will,  please  God, 
take  out  with  him  an  honest  Irish  lass  from  among  his  relatives, 
and  so  well  known  to  them  all.  Marcia’s  account  of  her,  will, 
I am  sure,  bear  the  test.  I wish  I could  say  what  I think  of 
her  from  my  own  experience,  but  the  knowledge  of  his  happi- 
ness is  enough  for  me.’  The  opportunity  for  forming  her  own 
judgment  in  the  important  matter  had  now  come  and  gone, 
and  had  convinced  her  that  her  son  was  not  only  as  happy 
as  he  could  be,  but  that  he  had  the  best  of  grounds  for  be- 
ing so. 

And  so  John  Lawrence  went  out  a second  time  from  England 
to  India;  still  almost  unnoticed  and  unknown;  his  great  ca- 
pacities still  unrecognised,  and  his  brilliant  future  still  not 
anticipated,  even  by  his  most  intimate  friends  and  relations, 
and  he  himself  not  a little  anxious — and,  as  the  result  showed, 
not  without  reason — as  to  the  occasion  which  India  might  now 
have  for  his  services.  He  was  to  return  to  England  twenty  years 
later,  the  observed  of  all  observers,  with  his  name  a household 
word  in  India  and  in  England,  and  with  a whole  people,  from 
whose  great  heart  he  had  sprung,  and  whose  best  characteristics 
he  so  well  combined,  flocking  from  all  parts  to  welcome  him, 
and  happy  if  they  could  catch  but  a sight  of  the  grand  and 
now  familiar  features  of  the  ruler  of  the  Punjab  and  the  man 
who  had  done  more  than  any  other  single  man  to  save  our 
Indian  Empire. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR.  1S38— 1842. 

During  the  three  years’  absence  of  John  Lawrence  in  England, 
the  gloomiest  and  most  disgraceful  chapter  of  Anglo-Indian 
history — it  may  almost  be  said  of  the  whole  course  of  English 
history — had  been  brought  to  its  close. 

The  story  of  the  Afghan  war  is  a thrice-told  tale,  and  its 
moral,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  is  graven  with  a pen  of  iron  on  the 
tablets  of  the  nation’s  heart.  With  its  design  and  progress 
John  Lawrence  had,  of  course,  nothing  to  do.  At  first  sight, 
therefore,  it  would  seem  to  lie  beyond  the  field,  already  suffi- 
ciently vast,  of  his  biography.  But,  though  he  exercised  no 
influence  on  the  Afghan  war,  it  exercised  so  profound  an  in- 
fluence on  him  ; it  helped  to  give  so  decided  a bent  to  the 
whole  of  his  subsequent  administration,  whether  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner of  the  Punjab,  or  as  Governor-General  of  India ; it 
has  so  dominated  the  foreign  policy  of  eight  successive  Gover- 
nors-General  during  a period  of  some  thirty-five  years, — that  it 
is  essential  to  a right  understanding  alike  of  John  Lawrence 
himself,  of  his  actions,  and  of  his  time,  to  indicate  in  bare  out- 
line the  general  causes  and  the  successive  steps  which  prepared 
the  way  for  the  catastrophe. 

The  story  is  thrilling  and  yet  monotonous — thrilling,  for  the 
ruin  was  so  terrible  and  so  complete  ; monotonous,  for  there  is 
no  single  step  from  first  to  last  upon  which  folly,  or  worse  than 
folly,  has  not  placed  its  ineffaceable  stamp.  A fatal  infatuation, 
to  which  the  pen  of  the  greatest  of  the  Greek  tragedians  could, 
perhaps,  alone  have  done  justice,  seems  to  clog  the  steps  of  those 
whom  God  has  determined  to  destroy,  and  has  therefore  first  de- 
prived of  their  senses.  The  Indian  career  of  Lord  Auckland 
began  with  the  first,  and  ended  with  the  last,  act  of  this  pro- 
longed and  gloomy  drama. 

The  immediate  cause  of  a state  of  things  which  seemed  to 
call  for  the  coolest  deliberation  and  the  most  straightforward 


134 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 838-42 


policy  on  the  part  of  English  statesmen,  but  served  instead  to 
deprive  them,  for  the  time,  alike  of  their  senses  and  of  their 
consciences,  was  the  rapid  progress  of  Russia.  What  was  the 
nature  and  extent  of  that  progress?  Nobody  who  studies  the 
subject  seriously  will  deny  that  it  was  rapid  and  startling 
enough.  On  the  side  of  Europe,  within  a period  of  some  fifty 
years,  Finland  had  been  conquered ; the  Turkish  Empire  had 
been  overrun  and  deprived  of  some  of  its  fairest  provinces  ; the 
partition  of  Poland,  that  crowning  iniquity  of  modern  times, 
had  been  planned  and  carried  out,  and  it  was  the  Russians  who 
had  got  the  lion’s  share  of  the  booty.  On  the  side  of  Asia, 
Russia  had  spread  southwards  from  Siberia  over  the  vast  steppes 
traversed  by  the  wandering  Kirghis  till  she  had  planted  her 
forts  on  the  Jaxartes,  had  looked  wistfully  towards  the  Oxus, 
and  had  begun  to  threaten  the  independence  even  of  the  three 
‘ independent  ’ khanates  of  Khiva,  Bokhara,  and  Khokand.  More 
formidable  even  than  this,  she  had  conquered  the  northern 
provinces  of  Persia,  and  had  made  that  empire  a mere  puppet 
in  her  hands.  The  repeated  embassies  and  subsidies  and  pro- 
mises of  the  British  to  the  Persian  Court — promises,  it  must  be 
added,  which  were  evaded  in  a rather  questionable  manner 
when  the  pinch  came — had  failed  to  secure  an  alliance  between 
Persia  and  England,  and  the  advance,  therefore,  of  the  Persians 
on  the  semi-independent  principality  of  Herat,  which  was  then, 
as  now,  one  of  the  pivots  of  the  eastern  problem,  might,  not 
unreasonably,  be  regarded  by  English  statesmen  as  the  advance 
of  the  Russians  themselves  against  the  one  country  which  still 
lay  between  them  and  the  Indus.  Here  was  a great  fact  or 
series  of  facts,  a danger  or  series  of  dangers,  with  which  Eng- 
lish statesmanship  had  to  grapple. 

There  was,  as  I have  said,  but  one  country  between  Persia 
and  India.  But  its  character  and  that  of  its  inhabitants  seemed 
likely  to  make  it,  with  decent  management,  the  very  best  and 
most  sufficient  of  barriers  against  any  further  hostile  advance 
of  the  Russians.  It  was  a barren,  mountainous,  inaccessible 
region,  inhabited  by  people  as  wild,  as  poor,  and  as  savage  as 
the  country  in  which  they  lived.  They  were  split  up  into  in- 
numerable tribes,  each  fiercely  attached  to  its  independence  and 
to  the  right  of  cutting  at  pleasure  its  neighbours’  throats,  but 
capable,  as  their  history  showed,  of  being  united  from  time  io 
time  into  a loose  confederacy  by  one  of  those  brilliant  leaders, 
half-religious  and  half-military,  such  as  Islam,  even  in  its  appar- 


1838-42 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR. 


135 


ent  decadence,  seems  capable,  at  pleasure,  of  bringing  to  the 
front.  This  loose  confederacy  generally  disappeared  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  genius  who  had  created  it ; and  there  were 
two  motives,  and  only  two,  which  seemed  capable  of  welding 
the  scattered  members  into  a compact  union  of  the  whole 
country — hatred  of  the  foreigner,  and  fear  of  a foreign  invasion. 
‘We  are  content,’  so  said  an  old  Afghan  chief  to  Mountstuart 
Elphinstone,  ‘ with  discord,  we  are  content  with  alarms,  we  are 
content  with  blood  ; but  we  will  never  be  content  with  a foreign 
master.’ 

There  was  seated  on  the  throne  of  Cabul,  in  the  year  1837, 
Dost  Mohammed,  a man  of  genius,  and  one  whose  name  will 
often  recur  in  this  biography.  A usurper  he  may  have  been, 
according  to  European  ideas,  but  in  a country  like  Afghanis- 
tan such  a man  might  fairly  claim  to  be  his  own  ancestry,  and 
as  Eastern  notions  go,  he  was  a wise  and  just  ruler.  Here,  then, 
was  the  very  man  for  our  purpose,  all  ready  to  our  hands.  How 
did  we  deal  with  him  ? 

We  accredited  an  envoy,  Alexander  Burnes  by  name,  to  his 
Court.  He  was  one  of  the  most  adventurous  and  successful  of 
our  Eastern  explorers,  and  he  soon  discovered  that  the  Afghan 
sovereign  was  anxious  to  form  an  alliance  with  us,  and  to  reject 
all  proposals  for  the  counter-alliance  which  Persian  and  Rus- 
sian agents  had  been  pressing  upon  him.  He  assured  his  em- 
ployers of  his  belief  in  the  Dost’s  sincerity,  and  pressed  them 
to  accept  his  proffered  friendship  as  the  best  security  against 
more  serious  dangers  beyond.  But  this  was  too  obvious  and 
straightforward  a course  for  men  whom  a religious  Greek 
would  have  represented  as  blinded  by  the  goddess  of  Bane,  and 
urged  resistlessly  onward  towards  their  ruin.  The  man  who 
was  anxious  to  be  our  friend  must  be  treated  as  an  enemy. 
The  sovereign  chosen  by  the  Afghans  must  be  driven  from  his 
throne,  and  a feeble  pretender,  whom  the  Afghans  had  ex- 
pelled, and  who  was  living  as  a pensioner  on  our  bounty,  must 
be  put  in  his  place  by  force  of  arms.  The  question  of  right  or 
wrong  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  the  astute  diplomatists 
who  elaborated  so  sublimely  foolish  a policy.  And  when  Alex- 
ander Burnes  had  fallen,  some  years  afterwards,  the  first  victim 
of  the  policy  which  he  had  disapproved,  and  when  our  calami- 
ties and  our  shame  did  compel  people  at  home  to  raise,  when  it 
was  too  late,  the  embarrassing  question  of  right  or  wrong,  a 
Secretary  of  State  was  found  who  was  not  ashamed  to  quell  the 


136 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1838-42 


rising  storm  by  garbling  the  despatches  of  the  dead,  and  to 
make  him  appear  to  have  recommended  as  politic  and  just  a 
course  of  action  which  he  had  always  deemed  impolitic  and 
unjust.  A policy  disgraceful  in  itself  was  thus  justified,  even 
after  it  had  been  quenched  in  blood  and  ruin  and  had  been  for- 
mally disavowed,  by  means  which  were  still  more  disgraceful. 

But  meanwhile  Shah  Soojah  was  fished  by  us  out  of  his  re- 
tirement ; we  formed  an  alliance  with  him  and  with  the  Sikhs, 
the  hereditary  enemies  of  the  Afghans  ; an  English  army  sur- 
mounted the  dangers  of  the  passes,  drove  Dost  Mohammed, 
after  a brave  resistance,  into  exile,  and,  with  the  loss  of  some 
' 70,000  camels — the  life-blood,  it  should  be  remembered,  of  these 
inaccessible  countries— succeeded  in  placing  our  puppet  on  the 
throne.  Rewards  were  distributed  by  the  English  authorities 
with  a liberal  hand;  the  successful  general,  Sir  John  Keane, 
hastened  home  with  his  success  and  with  a peerage  ; a large 
part  of  our  army  was  recalled  to  India,  and  the  remainder 
stayed  behind  simply  to  insure  the  ‘ benefits  which  we  had  con- 
ferred upon  a reluctant  people  ! ’ 

It  was  the  story  of  Regulus  in  Africa  over  again.  The  blind 
feeling  of  security  at  home  engendered  by  successes  which  had 
been  unexpectedly  rapid,  was  the  same  in  each  case.  The  infat- 
uation of  the  generals  in  command  was  the  same.  The  Roman 
general  wrote  back  word  to  Rome  that  he  had  ‘ sealed  up  the 
gates  of  Carthage  with  terror;  ’ and  as  he  dictated  terms  of  peace 
which  were  intolerable  to  a prostrate  but  high-spirited  foe,  told 
them  roughly  that  ‘ men  who  were  good  for  anything  should 
either  conquer  or  submit  to  their  betters.’  The  English  gene- 
ral boasted  that  ‘Afghanistan  was  as  tranquil  as  Wales,’  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  was  staying  behind  to  bolster  up  a ruler 
whom  he  knew  to  be  detested  by  the  whole  Afghan  nation. 
The  fate  of  the  invading  armies  was  much  the  same.  Only,  in 
our  case,  the  ruin  was  still  more  sudden,  still  more  terrible, 
and  still  more  complete  ; and  who  will  say  that  it  was  not  still 
more  deserved  ? The  genius  of  Horace  has  shed  a halo  of  glory 
round  the  last  days  of  Regulus  ; but  it  would  require  more 
than  the  genius  of  Horace  to  shed  a single  gleam  of  light  on 
the  last  days  of  Elphinstone  or  Shelton.  It  seems  to  be  the 
fate  of  an  Afghan  war  that  its  successes  are  only  less  melan- 
choly, if  indeed  they  are  less  melancholy,  than  its  failures. 


Bella  gci'i  placuit  nullos  habitura  triumphos. 


1838-42 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR. 


137 


What  followed  the  recall  of  our  troops  may  be  dismissed 
with  almost  equal  brevity.  At  first  everything  went  ‘ merry 
as  a -marriage  bell.’  Dost  Mohammed,  after  many  romantic- 
adventures  in  Central  Asia,  returned  at  the  head  of  a host  of 
Uzbeks  to  measure  his  sword  with  us,  and  after  an  engagement 
in  which,  by  his  gallantry,  he  deserved  the  success  which  he 
obtained,  surprised  everybody  by  his  voluntary  surrender.  Hut 
it  did  not  follow,  because  Dost  Mohammed  had  been  deposed 
and  was  safe  in  India,  that  therefore  Shah  Soojah  sat  safely  on 
his  throne.  The  announcement  had  hardly  been  made  that 
• * Afghanistan  was  as  tranquil  as  Wales  ’ when  the  first  dull 
murmur  of  the  rising  torrent  was  heard.  ‘ You  may  take  Can- 
dahar  and  Ghuzni,’  the  Khan  of  Khelat  had  warned  us  at  the 
very  outset  of  the  war:  ‘you  may  even  take  Cabul,  but  you 
cannot  conquer  the  snows  ; and  when  they  fall  you  will  be  able 
neither  to  maintain  your  army  nor  to  withdraw  it.’  ‘ When  your 
military  difficulties  are  over  your  real  difficulties  will  begin,’ 
was  the  warning  of  a greater  than  the  Khan  of  Khelat,  and  of 
one  who  might  have  claimed  a hearing  even  from  the  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control  and  the  Governor-General — the  great 
Duke  of  Wellington.  In  similar  tones  of  warning  had  spoken 
all  the  most  high-minded  and  the  best  informed  of  our  Indian 
administrators — Lord  Wellesley,  Mountstuart  Elphinstone,  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  and  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe  ; in  similar  tones 
spoke  the  Council  of  the  Governor-General,  when  at  last  they 
heard  the  secret  which  had  been  carefully  kept  from  them  by 
their  chief  ; in  similar  tones  the  Court  of  Directors  at  home  ; 
but  the  warning  fell  upon  deaf,  because  unwilling,  ears.  Do 
we  seem  to  be  reading  the  history  of  1838  or  1878  ? 

The  expenses  of  the  occupation  were  becoming  unbearable, 
and  yet  everybody  felt — as  perchance  they  are  feeling  now  at 
the  moment  at  which  I write — that  it  would  be  dishonourable 
to  leave  the  puppet  whom  we  had  crowned  to  his  certain 
fate,  and  Afghanistan  to  certain  anarchy.  So  we  lingered 
on  a little  longer  and  curtailed  our  expenses,  by  dimin- 
ishing the  subsidies  hitherto  paid  to  the  wild  tribes  who  held 
the  gloomy  passes  which  frowned  between  us  and  safety.  In- 
stantly they  returned  to  their  immemorial  custom  of  plundering 
and  slaying  all  passers  by,  and  in  a moment  we  were  cut  off 
from  India.  The  river  was  now  running  level  with  its  banks 
and  was  about  to  overwhelm  us.  But  still  Macnaghten,  the 
Resident  at  the  puppet’s  court ; still  Elphinstone,  the  general 


138 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1838-42 


in  command  of  the  troops  ; and  still  Alexander  Burnes,  the 
victim,  like  Cavagnari,  of  his  own  resolution  and  his  own  chiv- 
alrous blindness, — refused  to  take  warning.  The  English  troops 
who  ought  to  have  been  in  the  citadel  were  quartered  in  ill- 
constructed  cantonments  which  lay  at  a distance  from  the  city 
and  were  completely  commanded  by  the  surrounding  moun- 
tains. The  military  stores  were  in  a small  fort  at  a distance 
from  both  cantonments  and  citadel ; the  royal  treasure  was  in 
a similar  fort  in  the  middle  of  the  city,  as  though  to  invite  at- 
tack ; and  within  the  Bala  Hissar  or  citadel  cowered  the  miser- 
able monarch,  making  believe  to  stand  upon  his  dignity  and  • 
rule  the  country,  while  between  him  and  his  only  possible 
protectors,  the  English  army  in  its  cantonments,  seethed  and 
surged  the  fanatical  and  infuriated  mob  of  the  most  turbulent 
of  cities.  Worse  than  this,  while  in  subordinate  positions 
among  our  officers  were  some  of  the  most  intrepid  spirits 
whom  our  Indian  Empire  has  produced — Alexander  Burnes, 
Vincent  Eyre,  William  Broadfoot,  Colin  Mackenzie,  George 
Lawrence,  and  Eldred  Pottinger,  any  one  of  whom,  had  he 
been  in  command,  might  still  have  saved,  or  at  all  events  would 
have  deserved  to  save  us — the  chief  authority  was  vested  in 
General  Elphinstone,  a brave  soldier,  but  a man  wanting  in' 
decision,  and  now  incapacitated  doubly  by  old  age  and  by  a 
torturing  disease  ; while  next  to  him  came  Brigadier-General 
Shelton,  a far  abler  man,  but  cross-grained  and  petulant,  utterly 
impracticable,  hardly  on  speaking  terms  with  his  chief,  and  yet 
unable  to  act  either  with  him  or  without  him.  Everything  and 
everybody  in  fact  seemed  to  be  exactly  where  they  ought  not 
to  be,  and  this  at  the  very  crisis  of  the  fate  of  some  15,000 
men  ! 

Burnes,  who  was  living  in  his  own  house  in  the  city  without 
an  adequate  guard,  was  the  first  victim.  On  November  2,  an 
infuriated  mob  surrounded  his  house.  He  sent  for  aid  ro  the 
cantonments.  But  no  aid  came,  and,  after  a brave  resistance, 
he  was  hacked  to  pieces  in  his  own  garden.  The  stores  in  the 
small  fort  were  next  attacked,  and  our  troops  stood  looking  on 
from  their  cantonments  while  the  fort  was  stormed,  and  its 
contents,  the  only  supplies  which  could  keep  them  from  starva- 
tion, were  carried  off.  The  arrival  of  Akbar  Khan,  the  favourite 
son  of  Dost  Mohammed,  infused  fresh  spirit  into  the  Afghans, 
while  the  want  of  energy  and  spirit  shown  by  our  chiefs  spread 
paralysis  among  the  English  troops.  Once  and  again  they  re- 


838-42 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR. 


139 


fused  to  obey  the  word  of  command,  and  once  and  again  they 
fled  disgracefully  from  the  field  when  victory  seemed  to  be  in 
their  grasp.  Starvation  now  began  to  stare  them  in  the  face. 
And  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  make  the  best  terms  they 
could  for  the  evacuation  of  the  country  with  their  relentless 
foe.  The  game  was  in  the  hands  of  Akbar  Khan  ; and  if  the 
wolf  was  ever  merciful  to  the  lamb,  then  the  Feringhis  might 
hope  for  forbearance  from  the  infuriated  Ghilzais. 

In  the  struggle  for  dear  life  Macnaghten,  while  he  was  ne- 
gotiating with  some  of  the  Sirdars,  was  unfortunately  induced 
by  the  wily  Akbar  Khan  to  enter  privately  into  other  and  in- 
consistent negotiations  with  him.  It  was  a trap  intended  to 
demonstrate  to  the  assembled  Sirdars  the  faithlessness  of  the 
English,  and  it  was  successful.  Macnaghten  was  lured  to  a 
conference,  and  in  the  struggle  which  ensued  was  shot  dead  by 
Akbar  Khan.  His  head  was  cut  off,  and  his  body  paraded 
through  the  market  of  Cabul,  while  some  5,000  soldiers  lin- 
gered within  striking  distance,  not  daring  to  raise  a finger  in 
his  defence.  There  was  more  delay,  more  negotiations,  more 
appeals  for  mercy.  ‘In  friendship,’  pleaded  the  suppliants, 
‘kindness  and  consideration  are  necessary,  not  overpowering 
the  weak  with  sufferings.’  It  had  come  then  to  this  ! A 
younger  generation  of  Englishmen  may  need  to  be  reminded 
that  the  wreak  were  the  English,  and  that  the  friendship  appealed 
to  was  the  friendship  of  the  people  whose  country  we  had 
gratuitously  invaded  and  whose  ruler  we  had  deliberately  de- 
throned. In  vain  did  Eldred  Pottinger  dwell  on  the  faithless- 
ness of  the  enemy  and  on  the  succours  that  might  yet  be  hoped 
for  from  Jellalabad.  In  vain  did  he  passionately  appeal  to  the 
generals  to  allow  their  men  to  make  one  effort  more  to  cut  their 
way  through  the  army,  and  die,  if  die  they  must,  a soldier’s 
death.  The  hope  of  life  was  stronger  than  any  of  his  argu- 
ments ; and  at  last,  on  December  24,  the  final  agreement  for 
the  evacuation  of  the  country  was  signed.  All  the  guns  but 
six,  and  all  the  remaining  treasure,  were  to  be  given  up  ; Dost 
Mohammed  was  to  be  restored  ; Shah  Soojah  was  to  make  away 
with  himself  whither  and  how  he  liked  ; Nott  was  to  retire  from 
Candahar  and  Sale  from  Jellalabad.  On  these  terms  the  re- 
treating army  was  to  be  supplied  with  provisions  and  to  receive 
a safe-conduct  as'  far  as  Jellalabad. 

It  was  several  days  before  the  treaty  was  ratified.  Snow — • 
the  snow  of  which  the  Khan  of  Khelat  had  warned  us — began 


140 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1838-42 


to  fall  ; and  on  January  6,  4,500  fighting-men,  and  some  12,000 
camp-followers,  including  many  women  and  children,  defiled 
out  of  the  cantonments.  As  the  last  of  these  left  the  camp — and 
unfortunately  it  was  not  till  late  in  the  evening  that  they  did 
so — the  infuriated  and  triumphant  Afghans  rushed  in  and  set 
fire  to  the  abandoned  tents,  while  the  retreating  army  wound 
slowly  on  towards  the  fearful  gorge  of  the  Khurd  Cabul.  The 
snow  lay  thick  upon  the  ground  ; and  upon  the  snow,  without 
food  or  fuel  or  shelter  of  any  kind,  there  bivouacked  for  two 
nights  in  succession,  in  that  pitiless  climate,  the  motley  and  ill- 
fated  host  composed  of  dusky  troops  drawn  from  the  sun- 
scorched  plains  of  India,  of  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen 
and  babes  at  the  breast.  The  camp-followers,  who  brought  up 
the  rear  of  our  army,  had  been  the  first  to  feel  the  attacks  of 
the  pursuing  Ghilzais  ; but  when,  on  the  third  day,  the  fore- 
most columns  began  to  enter  the  fatal  defile,  they  too  fell  fast 
and  thick  beneath  the  fire  of  an  enemy  whom  they.could  feel 
and  hear,  but  could  not  see.  Every  rock  concealed  an  Afghan 
marksman,  and  everyone  who  lagged  behind  or  who  dropped 
exhausted  on  the  road  was  immediately  hacked  to  pieces  by 
Afghan  knives.  Agreement  after  agreement  was  made  with 
Akbar  Khan,  who  hung  like  a bird  of  evil  omen  on  our  skirts, 
and  concession  after  concession  was  wrung  from  us.  First,  the 
subordinate  officers  who  might  have  done  most  to  sustain  the 
shrinking  spirits  of  the  men  and,  perhaps,  might  have  saved 
them  altogether — Lawrence,  Mackenzie,  and  Pottinger — were 
given  up  as  hostages  ; next  came  the  women  and  children  ; 
and,  last  of  all,  those  whom,  unfortunately,  we  could  best  spare, 
the  officers  in  command — Elphinstone  and  Shelton. 

Lured  by  the  scent  of  human  carnage,  and  drunk  with  the 
blood  which  they  had  already  gorged,  the  Ghilzai  vultures  were 
not  likely,  in  deference  to  any  stipulations  made  with  Akbar 
Khan,  to  spare  the  prey  that  was  in  their  power ; and  Akbar 
himself,  who  might,  perhaps,  have  done  something  to  restrain 
their  fury,  was  already  off  with  his  precious  burden  of  English 
ladies  and  generals  to  Cabul.  The  retreat  had  long  since  be- 
come a rout,  and  the  army  a rabble.  The  scanty  supply  of 
food  was  gone,  and  now  the  ammunition  began  to  fail  also.  The 
last  desperate  stand  was  made  at  Gundamuck,  a name  of  ill 
omen,  not  wiped  out  by  the  treaty  which  twenty-seven  years 
later  has  been  called  after  it ; and  on  January  15,  there  was 
espied  from  the  ramparts  of  Jellalabad,  riding  on  a jaded  pony, 


1838-42 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR. 


141 

which  itself  seemed  but  half  alive,  a single  man,  half  dead  with 
agony  of  mind  and  body,  exhausted  by  want  of  food,  by  loss  of 
blood,  and  by  fatigue — the  one  solitary  survivor  of  the  15,000 
men  who  had  left  Cabul  ten  days  before.  Never,  surely,  in  the 
whole  course  of  history  has  wrong-doing  been  more  terribly 
and  more  deservedly  avenged.  The  one  consolation — if  indeed 
it  can  now  be  called  a consolation — was  that  we  had  learned  a 
lesson  which  we  could  never  need  to  be  taught  again. 

The  evil  genius  of  Lord  Auckland,  who  retired,  broken- 
down,  to  England,  seemed  to  rest  for  the  time  even  on  the  en- 
ergy  and  courage  of  his  successor.  Lord  Ellenborough  was  a 
man  of  great  ability,  but  his  genius  was  erratic.  He  was  a 
splendid  orator,  but  his  despatches  were  often  merely  grandiose. 
He  was  the  victim  of  his  own  itching  ears.  And  his  judgment, 
his  candour,  and  his  caution  were  often  sacrificed  to  the  turn  of 
a sentence,  or  the  rhythm  of  a peroration.  He  was  always  in 
extremes  ; and  after  a chivalrous  proclamation,  in  which,  by 
candidly  avowing  our  mistakes  and  wrong-doings,  and  setting 
forth  the  principles  of  our  policy  for  the  future,  he  had  evoked 
a warm  response  from  one  end  of  India  to  the  other,  he  straight- 
way turned  the  admiration  he  had  excited  into  disgust  and  in- 
dignation, by  the  order,  again  and  again  repeated,  to  Pollock 
and  Nott  at  once  to  withdraw  from  Afghanistan,  leaving  the 
prisoners — our  brave  officers  and  their  helpless  wives  and 
children — to  their  fate  ! But  the  passive  resistance,  and  inge- 
nious inability  of  Nott  and  Pollock  to  do  what  they  were  bid- 
den, put  off  the  evil  day,  and  at  last  brought  the  famous  per- 
mission to  ‘retire  ’ from  Jellalabad  and  Candahar,  should  they 
think  it  Advisable,  ‘ by  way  of  Cabul ! ’ The  permission  was 
greedily  seized  by  the  generals  ; the  capital  was  occupied  by  the 
army  of  vengeance,  and,  thanks  to  the  generous  exertions  of 
our  officers,  less  summary  punishment  was  inflicted  on  the  in- 
habitants than  might  have  been  expected  from  the  excited  feel- 
ings of  our  soldiery.  The  Bala  Hissar  was  blown  up;  the 
great  bazaar  in  which  Macnaghten’s  body  had  been  exposed 
to  insult  was  destroyed,  together  with  the  adjacent  mosque  ; 
the  shops  of  the  possibly  guilty  Afghans,  and  certainly  inno- 
cent Hindus,  were  given  up  to  loot ; the  prisoners  who  had 
been  sent  off  to  a living  death  in  Turkestan  returned,  as  by  a 
series  of  miracles,  from  the  heights  of  the  Hindu  Kush,  and 
literally  dropped  into  our  hands  ; and,  finally,  the  sandal-wood 
gates,  as  they  were  then  believed  to  be,  of  Somnath,  were 


142 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1838-42 


brought  back  in  triumph  from  Ghuzni ; while  the  bewildered 
natives  of  India  were  congratulated  by  the  Governor-General — 
the  Mohammedans  on  the  recapture  by  Christians  of  what  a 
Mohammedan  conqueror  had  taken  away,  and  the  Hindus  on 
the  restoration  to  a temple  which  had  long  ceased  even  to  be 
remembered,  of  a trophy  which  was  destined  to  find  a fit  rest- 
ing-place at  last,  not  in  the  restored  temple  of  Somnath,  but  in 
the  armoury  of  the  Government  fort  at  Agra  ! This  proclama- 
tion was  greeted  with  an  outburst  of  derision  both  in  England 
and  in  India  ; and  so,  according  to  approved  precedents,  the 
most  prolonged  tragedy  through  which  the  Indian  Government 
had  ever  passed  ended  in  a tragi-comedy,  if  not  in  a downright 
farce. 

On  October  1,  1838,  Lord  Auckland  had  put  forth  from  Simla 
the  famous  State  paper  which,  astounding  in  the  audacity  and 
recklessness  of  its  assertions,  had  declared  his  objects  in  the  in- 
vasion of  Afghanistan  ; and  now,  by  a coincidence  which  was 
anything  but  undesigned,  exactly  four  years  later,  on  October 
1,  1842,  Lord  Ellenborough,  who  always  aimed  at  theatrical  ef- 
fects, from  the  very  same  place,  and  the  very  same  room,  wrote  a 
manifesto  which  declared  that 

disasters  unparalleled  in  their  extent,  unless  by  the  errors  in  which  they 
were  originated,  and  by  the  treachery  by  which  they  were  completed, 
had  in  one  short  campaign  been  avenged  upon  every  scene  of  past  mis- 
fortune ; that  to  force  a sovereign  upon  a reluctant  people  was  as  incon- 
sistent with  the  policy  as  it  was  with  the  principles  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, tending  to  place  the  armies  and  resources  of  that  people  at  the 
disposal  of  the  first  invader,  and  to  impose  the  burden  of  supporting  a 
sovereign  without  the  prospect  of  benefit  from  his  alliance  ; finally,  that 
the  Government  of  India,  content  with  the  limits  nature  appeared  to 
have  assigned  to  its  empire,  would  henceforward  devote  all  its  efforts  to 
the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  general  peace,  to  the  protection  of 
the  sovereigns  and  chiefs  its  allies,  and  to  the  prosperity  and  happiness 
of  its  own  faithful  subjects  ; that  the  rivers  of  the  Punjab  and  the  Indus, 
and  the  mountainous  passes  and  the  barbarous  tribes  of  Afghanistan 
would  be  placed  between  the  British  army  and  an  enemy  approaching 
from  the  West,  and  no  longer  between  the  army  and  its  supplies. 

Golden  words,  but  only  half  true,  if  the  acts  and  purposes  of 
the  English  Government  of  1878  are  the  acts  and  purposes  of 
the  English  nation  ! Meanwhile,  on  the  very  day  on  which 
Lord  Ellenborough  wrote  his  famous  proclamation,  there  started 
from  England  on  his  return  voyage  to  India  the  young  Bengal 


1838-42 


THE  FIRST  AFGHAN  WAR. 


143 


civilian,  as  yet  little  known  to  fame,  who,  the  very  opposite  to 
Lord  Ellenborough  in  all  respects,  simple  as  a child  in  word,  in 
deed,  and  in  thought,  was  destined  to  carry  out  into  act,  and 
with  the  happiest  results  to  all  concerned,  the  wise  and  noble 
policy  therein  foreshadowed.  And  so,  from  this  long  but,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  not  unnecessary"  digression  on  the  first  Afghan 
war,  to  John  Lawrence,  the  consistent  and  indomitable  oppo- 
nent of  all  future  Afghan  wars,  except  for  purposes  of  bona-fide 
self-defence,  I now  return. 


I 


CHAPTER  VII. 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI;  AND  FIRST  SIKH  WAR.  1842—1846. 

After  the  usual  roughing  of  the  Overland  Route  and  the  forma- 
tion of  several  shipboard  friendships,  one  of  which,  unlike  most 
shipboard  friendships — that  with  Seton-Karr — proved  lasting, 
John  Lawrence  and  his  wife  arrived  at  Bombay  on  November 
14,  1842.  It  was  a place  new  to  him  as  to  her;  and  after  ten 
days  of  sight-seeing  in  that  bustling  Babel  of  races  and  lan- 
guages, finding  that  a war  had  broken  out  in  Bundelcund,  the 
direct  route  to  the  North-West  Provinces,  they  determined  to 
take  the  much  longer  and  more  difficult  route  through  the  little- 
known  central  provinces  to  Allahabad.  It  was  a journey  ad- 
venturous for  a man,  but  doubly  adventurous  for  a woman, 
whose  first  experience  of  India  had  been  a violent  attack  of 
cholera  from  which,  under  her  husband’s  careful  nursing,  she 
was  just  recovering.  Travelling  in  India  was  then  slow  work 
under  the  best  of  circumstances,  for  there  were  no  railways,  no 
public  conveyances,  few  serais,  and  few  roads  or  even  tracks. 
But  this  journey  was  exceptionally  rough  and  difficult  even  for 
India.  No  sooner  had  the  cool  air  and  delightful  scenery  of  the 
Ghauts  been  left  behind,  than  John  Lawrence  was  himself  at- 
tacked with  symptoms  of  the  same  terrible  disease.  ‘We  were 
thus,’  writes  Lady  Lawrence,  ‘about  as  helpless  a pair  of 
travellers  in  a strange  land  as  could  well  be  found  ; but  we  were 
young  and  not  easily  frightened,  and,  as  my  husband  knew 
what  to  do  on  the  first  appearance  of  illness,  the  alarming 
symptoms  did  not  increase,  and  he  was  soon  quite  well  again.’ 
At  Poona  they  stopped  for  a few  days  in  the  house  of  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  who  was  in  command  there,  but  happened  to 
be  absent  on  a tour  of  inspection.  From  Aurungabad,  their 
next  halting-place,  to  Nagpore,  a distance  of  three  hundred 
miles,  their  journey  lay  through  a wild  country  with  a very 
sparse  population,  and  with  no  facilities  at  all  for  travelling. 
As  far  as  Ellickpore  they  went  by  dawk,  that  is,  in  palanquins 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


145 


with  relays  of  bearers.  But  here  their  progress  was  stopped,  for 
there  was  no  regular  dawk,  and  it  was  with  much  difficulty  that 
John  Lawrence  managed  to  engage  a set  of  forty  bearers  to 
carry  them  thence  to  Nagpore.  Their  plan  of  travelling  was  to 
start  between  three  and  four  p.m.  and  push  on  till  late  at  night, 
when  they  stopped  near  a village,  arranged  for  their  food  and 
made  up  their  beds,  of  course  in  their  palanquins.  After  a few 
hours’  sleep,  they  were  off  again  and  pressed  on  till  the  sun 
obliged  them  to  stop.  It  was  seldom  during  this  wild  journey 
that  they  came  even  upon  a traveller’s  bungalow.  Having  only 
one  servant,  they  had  to  do  almost  everything  for  themselves. 
The  wiry  collector,  in  addition  to  keeping  his  forty  bearers  in 
order — a task  for  which  his  early  life  at  Paniput  had  well  quali- 
fied him — had  often  himself  to  act  the  part  of  purveyor,  of 
butcher,  and  of  cook  ; in  other  words,  he  had  to  find,  to  kill, 
and  to  cook  the  lamb,  the  goat,  or  the  pair  of  fowls  which  was 
to  keep  them  alive,  and  as  he  used  to  relate,  many  were  the 
shifts  and  the  turns  to  which  he  had  recourse  to  conceal  the 
disagreeable  preparations  for  their  rough-and-ready  meal  from 
his  young  and  tender-hearted  wife. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  year  they  arrived  at  Nagpore,  much  to 
the  astonishment  of  the  Englishmen  whom  they  found  there. 
An  enterprising  English  traveller,  Mr.  James  Bryce,  who  has 
scaled  alone  the  almost  untrodden  peak  of  Ararat,  has  recently 
told  us  how,  when  he  informed  the  Archimandrite  of  the  Armen- 
ian monastery  at  its  foot  of  what  he  had  done,  the  venerable 
old  man  courteously  declined  to  believe  him,  and  answered  with 
a pleasant  smile,  ‘No,  that  cannot  be  ; no  one  has  been  there  ; 
it  is  impossible.’  Even  so  the  English  residents  at  Nagpore  re- 
fused to  believe  that  a lady  could  have  accomplished  so  toil- 
some a journey,  and  that  too,  as  John  Lawrence  emphatically 
declared,  without  a single  murmur  under  all  its  hardships  and 
difficulties. 

In  the  comfortable  quarters  at  Nagpore  more  serious  troubles 
came  upon  John  Lawrence,  for  here  he  found  that  his  chance 
of  obtaining  employment  was  very  slight.  Our  troops  had  just 
returned  from  Afghanistan,  and  a brilliant,  but,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, a very  ill-timed  and  childish  pageant  had  been 
elaborated  by  Lord  Ellenborough  for  their  reception  at  Feroze- 
pore,  then  our  chief  station  on  the  Sikh  frontier,  and  a place, 
as  the  readers  of  ‘ Sir  Henry  Lawrence’s  Life  ’ 1 know,  which 


Vol.  I. — 10 


1 Vol.  i.  p.  206. 


146 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


was  almost  the  creation  of  his  energy  and  zeal.  There  were 
painted  elephants  in  vast  numbers,  there  were  triumphal  arches, 
there  was  the  waving  of  banners,  there  was  the  roar  of  artillery 
— altogether  a fine  show,  but,  to  those  who  reflected  on  what 
had  happened,  a sorry  sight.  One  ingredient  of  the  pageant 
was  happily  conspicuous  by  its  absence.  It  had  been  intend- 
ed by  Lord  Ellenborough,  in  the  very  worst  spirit  of  Roman 
pride,  that  the  captive  monarch  whom  we  had  driven  from  his 
throne,  and  were  now  driven  to  replace  upon  it,  should  grace 
with  his  presence  the  triumphal  procession.  But  better  coun- 
sels prevailed,  and  he  and  we  were  spared  this  crowning  humil- 
iation. 

There  was  no  one  in  India  who  did  not  rejoice  that  we  were 
quit  of  Afghanistan — the  scene  of  our  success  and  of  our  shame 
— on  almost  any  terms.  A feeling  of  mixed  excitement  and 
depression  pervaded  the  country.  There  was  plenty  to  be  done, 
but  there  were  too  many  hands  to  do  it.  Everyone  seemed  to 
be  out  of  work,  and  John  Lawrence  wrote  in  some  anxiety 
from  Nagpore  to  report  his  arrival  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  the  North-West  Provinces.  He  wrote  privately  at  the  same 
time  to  his  immediate  superior  and  friend,  Robert  Hamilton, 
Commissioner  of  Agra,  begging  him  to  press  his  claims  for  an 
appointment.  Meanwhile  he  pushed  on  to  Allahabad,  where 
he  was  hospitably  entertained  by  Frederick  Currie,  who  was, 
in  after  years,  to  be  brought  into  such  close  contact  with  him 
in  high  official  posts.  Here  he  bought  his  first  pair  of  horses. 
It  was  a characteristic  purchase  enough  ; for  he  used  often  to 
tell,  with  something  perhaps  of  shame,  but  more  of  amusement 
or  of  pride,  how,  as  I have  related  already,  in  earlier  days  at 
Paniput,  he  had  been  so  taken  by  the  beauty  of  a splendid 
Arab  that  he  had  spent  his  last  penny  in  buying  him.  It  was 
on  Chanda’s  back  that,  far  many  years  afterwards,  he  had  done 
some  of  the  very  best  of  his  work  : his  ‘cutchcrryon  horse- 
back;’ his  pursuit  of  great  criminals;  his  morning  and  even- 
ing canters,  varied  sometimes  by  the  healthful  and  exciting 
chase,  albeit  he  was  all  alone,  of  the  hyena  or  the  wolf  or  the 
wild  boar. 

At  Cawnpore  he  spent  a month  in  the  house  of  Richard,  the 
youngest  of  the  Lawrence  brotherhood,  who  was  just  then  em- 
ployed in  raising  troops  there.  It  was  a pleasant  breathing- 
space  before  the  more  public  and  responsible  portion  of  his 
life  began.  But,  anxious  about  the  future,  and  eager  to  be  at 


I 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


147 


work  again,  he  chafed  at  the  want  of  employment.  He  had 
already  purchased  what  was  in  his  eyes  the  first  necessity  of 
life — a pair  of  horses — and  now  he  furnished  himself  with  what 
was  only  less  necessary — a second  pair  ; and  then,  after  buying 
a buggy,  a stock  of  tents,  and  stores  of  various  kinds,  and  en- 
gaging servants  for  the  future  housekeeping,  he  started  forth 
again,  like  the  patriarch  of  old,  with  his  long  caravan  of  fol- 
lowers, not  knowing  which  way  he  was  to  go,  or  where  he 
should  find  rest,  or  rather  work. 

It  was  his  wife's  first  experience  of  camp  life,  and  very  en- 
joyable she  found  it.  The  usual  plan  was  to  send  the  tents  in 
advance  some  ten  or  twelve  miles,  and  then  to  drive  that  dis- 
tance in  the  buggy,  arriving  in  time  for  breakfast,  which  would 
be  all  ready  for  them  ; and  then  they  would  spend  the  heat  of 
the  day  in  reading,  writing,  and  conversation.  At  Agra  their 
tents  were  pitched  just  outside  the  gardens  of  the  Taj  Mehal, 
so  that  they  had  every  opportunity  of  observing  that  matchless 
building — ‘the  delight  and  the  despair’  of  the  architects  of  the 
world,  in  the  early  morning,  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  midday 
sun,  and  by  the  softer  light  of  the  moon.  This  visit  was  spe- 
cially recalled  to  the  mind  of  one  at  least  of  the  party  when, 
more  than  twenty  years  afterwards,  they  were  there  once  again 
in  all  the  pomp  and  splendour  of  the  Vice-regal  court.  ‘ Great 
as  was  then,’  writes  Lady  Lawrence,  ‘my  joy  and  thankful 
pride  in  my  husband,  it  could  not  be  greater  than  the  delight  of 
those  early  days,  when  the  world  seemed  all  before  us,  and  the 
reality  of  life  had  yet  hardly  touched  me,  and  I lived  only  in 
the  present  happiness.’ 

On  one  of  their  easy  marches  thence  a striking  domestic  in- 
cident occurred.  John  Lawrence  and  his  wife  were  driving 
one  day  towards  their  tents,  when  they  saw  a large  encamp- 
ment near  the  road,  from  which,  to  their  indescribable  surprise 
and  delight  emerged  their  brother  George,  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  his  long  captivity  in  Afghanistan,  and  was  still 
dressed  as  an  Afghan.  What  a family  meeting ! And  what  an 
outpouring  of  hearts  there  must  have  been  ! The  incidents  of 
the  victorious  advance  to  Cabul,  and  the  disastrous  retreat  from 
it,  the  captivity,  the  chivalrous  self-sacrifice,  and  the  escape  as 
from  a living  death  of  the  elder  ; the  hopes  deferred,  the  news 
from  the  distant  home,  always  welcome  in  a foreign  land,  but 
perhaps  never  so  welcome  as  now,  brought  direct  from  Eng- 
land by  the  younger  brother ! What  thrilling  stories  George 


14B 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


Lawrence  must  have  had  to  tell  during  the  one  day  that  he  was 
able  to  march  with  John,  those  who  have  read  his  account  of 
‘Forty  Years  in  India,’  know  well.  But  perhaps  no  story  was 
so  thrilling  as  one  which  is  not,  I think,  contained  in  it,  and 
which,  just  as  I heard  it  from  his  own  lips,  may  find  a place 
here. 

One  day  while  George  Lawrence,  Eldred  Pottinger,  and  the 
other  captives  were  sitting  together  at  one  end  of  the  room  in 
which  they  were  confined,  Akbar  Khan — the  man  who  had  slain 
Macnaghten  with  his  own  hand,  and  had  made  the  treacherous 
compacts  with  our  demoralized  troops — came  in  with  other  lead- 
ing Sirdars  and  proceeded  to  hold  high  and  animated  debate  at 
the  other  end  of  the  room.  Pottinger,  the  only  one  of  the  hos- 
tages who  understood  Pushtu,  moved  towards  them  and  listened 
attentively.  At  last  he  rejoined  his  own  party  and  said  to 
George  Lawrence,  ‘Do  you  know  what  they  are  discussing?’ 
‘No,’  replied  Lawrence.  ‘Well,’  said  Pottinger  quietly,  ‘only 
whether  it  is  better  for  their  own  interests  to  kill  us  here  and 
now,  or  to  keep  us  alive  ; at  present  the  majority  are  for  killing 
us.’  ‘You  had  better  go  back,’  replied  Lawrence  with  equal 
self-command  : ‘ see  how  the  debate  goes,  and  then  come  and 
let  us  know.’  Pottinger  did  so,  and  when  the  ‘great  consult  ’ 
was  over,  he  returned,  saying,  ‘ The  majority  arc  now  the  other 
way,  and  we  are  not  to  be  killed  at  present.’  After  this  the 
prisoners  were  well  treated,  but  it  was  not  the  first  time  that 
their  lives  had  been  in  imminent  danger.  It  had  been  seriously 
proposed  on  a previous  occasion  that  each  Sirdar  should  kill 
one  captive  with  his  own  hands,  thus  placing  all  alike  beyond 
the  pale  of  British  forgiveness  ; and  it  was  probably  not  so 
much  due  to  the  clemency  as  to  the  enlightened  sense  of  self- 
interest  of  Akbar  Khan  that  their  lives  had,  on  each  occasion, 
been  spared. 

On  parting  with  his  brother,  George  asked  him  casually 
whither  he  was  going.  ‘To  Meerut,’  replied  John.  ‘ Why  on 
earth  are  you  going  to  a place  where  you  are  not  known  ?’  re- 
joined his  brother.  ‘ Go  to  Delhi,  where  you  are  known  : you 
are  sure  to  get  work  there.’  The  advice  was  taken,  and  while 
he  was  on  his  way  thither  he  heard  to  his  delight  that,  on  the 
Commissioner  of  Agra’s  recommendation,  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  post  of  Civil  and  Sessions  Judge  at  Delhi, 
though  only  for  the  period  of  one  month.  Thus  John  Law- 
rence found  himself  beginning  work  once  more  at  the  scene  of 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


149 


his  earliest  Indian  labours.  And  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  look- 
ing at  the  important  influence  which  this  return  on  his  own  foot- 
steps had  on  the  whole  of  his  subsequent  career,  and  considering 
also  what  a career  it  was,  that  I have  found  that  more  than  one 
person  has  been  anxious  to  claim  a share  of  the  credit  of  sending 
him  back  there.  In  any  case,  years  afterwards  John  Lawrence 
wrote  to  Hamilton  : ‘Your  sending  me  to  Delhi  in  1843  was 
the  making  of  me,  and  I can  never  forget  it.’  And  those  cyni- 
cal people  who  are  ready  to  think  that  gratitude  may  be  best 
defined  as  ‘a  lively  anticipation  of  favours  to  come’  may  be  in- 
terested to  know  that  such,  at  all  events,  was  not  John  Lawrence's 
gratitude  ; for  years  afterwards  again,  when  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Punjab  had  returned  to  England,  and  had  become  a 
member  of  the  Indian  Council,  he  wrote  to  Sir  Robert  Hamilton 
in  warm  recollection  of  this  long  bygone  service,  and  offered 
him  his  first  nomination  for  his  son.  ‘ It  is  a great  trait  in  his 
character,’  says  Sir  Robert  ; and  few  will  deny  that  it  was  so. 

There  were  no  more  easy  marches  now.  John  Lawrence  and 
his  wife  hurried  on  to  Delhi,  and,  during  thfcir  month’s  stay 
there,  were  hospitably  entertained  by  Thomas  Metcalfe,  the 
Commissioner,  brother-in-law  to  George  Lawrence,  and  an  old 
friend  of  John,  who,  eight  years  before,  had  assisted  him  in  bring- 
ing to  justice  the  murderers  of  William  Fraser,  his  predecessor  in 
his  high  office.  John  was  delighted  to  be  at  work  again  in  the 
place  which  he  knew  and  loved  so  well,  and  by  the  end  of  the 
month  he  received  another  acting  appointment  in  the  Delhi  dis- 
trict, not  far  from  the  scene  of  his  old  labours  at  Paniput.  His 
headquarters  were  to  be  at  Kurnal,  which  he  had  known  before 
only  as  a large  military"  cantonment ; and  the  prospect  of  set- 
tling down  quietly,  even  for  the  short  period  of  six  months,  was 
pleasant  enough. 

But  this  was  not  to  be  just  yet,  for  disturbances  had  broken 
out  in  the  neighbouring  state  of  Khytul.  Its  Raja  having  died 
without  an  heir,  the  English  Government  found  it  convenient 
to  declare  that  the  territory  had  lapsed  to  them.  But  the  re- 
tainers of  the  palace,  thinking,  as  well  they  might,  that  they 
had  at  least  as  good  a right  to  the  palace  spoils  as  the  English, 
stimulated  the  native  troops  to  resist  the  transfer,  and  attacked 
and  overpowered  the  small  force  which  was  sent  to  take  it 
over.  The  ungrateful  duty  of  suppressing  this  disturbance  fell 
upon  Henry  Lawrence,  who,  after  his  exhausting  labours  at 
Peshawur  in  pushing  on  supplies  for  Pollock’s  army  of  retri- 


150 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


842-46 


bution,  had  recently  come  back  to  civil  work  at  Umballa.  He 
was  opposed,  on  principle,  to  the  annexation  of  native  states  ; 
the  work  therefore  was  little  to  his  liking,  but  he  had  no  choice 
in  the  matter.  He  hurried  over  to  Kurnal  for  reinforcements, 
which  were  supplied  by  his  brother  John  in  conjunction  with 
the  military  authorities,  and  John,  delighted  to  see  his  brother, 
and  perhaps  also — like  David,  as  Eliab  thought — still  more  de- 
lighted to  see  a little  fighting,  accompanied  the  force  to  the 
scene  of  action.  The  resistance  of  the  enemy  was  trifling 
enough,  but  it  was  a work  of  more  difficulty  to  keep  order 
among  the  British  troops,  some  of  whom  actually  plundered 
the  treasures  which  they  had  been  sent  to  guard. 

But  I am  fortunately  able  to  describe  the  scene  in  the  graphic 
words  of  an  eye-witness,  my  friend  Colonel  Henry  Yule. 

The  family  of  the  Khytul  Rajah  had  refused  to  give  up  the  palace  to 
the  native  force  sent  to  receive  it.  My  friend  and  chief,  Sir  William 
Baker,  then  Captain  and  Superintendent  of  Canals,  was  ordered  out  to 
give  engineering  help  if  needed,  and  I with  him.  We  met  the  troops  re- 
tiring discomfited  with  some  loss.  So  we  had  to  wait  till  a considerable 
force  assembled  and  advanced  to  Khytul.  The  fort  was  found  abandoned, 
and  a strange  scene  of  confusion — all  the  paraphernalia  and  accumula- 
tions of  odds  and  ends  of  a wealthy  native  family  lying  about  and  invit- 
ing loot.  I remember  one  beautiful  crutch-stick  of  ebony  with  two  rams’ 
heads  in  jade.  I took  it  and  sent  it  in  to  the  political  authority,  intend- 
ing to  buy  it  when  sold.  There  was  a sale,  but  my  crutch  never  ap- 
peared ! Somebody  had  a more  developed  taste  in  jade.  I remember 
an  Irish  officer,  rummaging  a box,  found  a book  in  some  native  language, 
with  a title-page  in  English  that  he  could  read — after  his  fashion — for  he 
called  out  to  me,  ‘ It’s  the  Epistle  to  Powle.  I read  it  on  the  frontispiece  ! ’ 
On  this  occasion  I saw  four  distinguished  men — Sir  George  Clerk,  Henry 
Lawrence,  R.  Napier,  and  John  Lawrence.  With  the  first  three  1 made 
acquaintance,  the  last  I only  saw.  But  he  must  have  even  then  been  a 
man  of  mark  in  some  way,  from  the  way  he  was  pointed  out  to  me. 

Amid  the  general  rummage  that  was  going  on,  an  officer  of  British  in- 
fantry had  been  put  over  a part  of  the  palace  supposed  to  contain 
treasure,  and  they — officer  and  all — were  helping  themselves.  Henry 
Lawrence  was  one  of  the  Politicals  under  (Sir)  George  Clerk.  When 
the  news  of  this  affair  came  to  him  I was  present.  It  was  in  a white 
marble  loggia  in  the  palace,  where  there  was  a white  marble  chair,  or 
throne,  on  a basement.  Lawrence  was  sitting  on  this  throne  in  great 
excitement.  He  wore  an  Afghan  choga,  a sort  of  dressing-gown  gar- 
ment, and  this,  and  his  thin  locks  and  thin  goat’s  beard,  were  streaming 
in  the  wind.  He  always  dwells  in  my  memory  as  a sort  of  pythoness  on 
her  tripod  under  the  afflatus  ! 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


151 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  Henry  Lawrence  took  good  care 
to  bring  the  offenders  to  justice,  and  then  with  all  the  energy 
of  his  nature  he  set  to  work  to  reorganise  the  administration 
and  settle  the  revenue  of  the  little  state.  John  Lawrence  mean- 
while returned  to  Kurnal,  and  here  a domestic  event  of  im- 
portance occurred,  for  on  June  10,  1843,  at  the  very  hottest 
season,  his  eldest  child,  Kate,  was  born.  John’s  office  was  in 
his  own  house,  a privilege  rare  enough  in  Indian  official  life  ; 
and  his  only  complaint  was  that,  owing  to  the  epidemic  which 
was  raging  in  the  surrounding  district,  he  could  get  nobody  to 
do  any  work. 

In  October,  when  the  court  of  the  Governor-General  broke 
up  from  Simla,  and  began  to  move  towards  Calcutta,  John 
Lawrence’s  house,  being  the  only  inhabited  one  in  the  canton- 
ment, was  the  halting-place  of  many  high  officials,  with  a 
sprinkling  of  old  friends  among  them  ; and  on  November  6,  his 
brother  Henry  and  his  wife  arrived  on  their  way  to  Nepal. 
Here  was  another  happy  family  meeting.  It  was  the  first  time 
that  the  wives  had  met  since  they  had  played  together  as 
young  girls  in  the  North  of  Ireland,  and  each  had  now  the 
satisfaction  of  judging  for  herself  of  the  choice  the  other  had 
made,  and  of  witnessing  the  help,  the  sympathy,  and  the  happi- 
ness which  each  gave  and  received  in  so  abundant  a measure. 
They  passed  some  days  together  in  the  one  inhabited  house, 
‘surrounded,’  says  Mrs.  Henry  I^awrence,  ‘by  long  lines  of 
barracks,  hospitals,  and  stables,  flagstaff,  racquet-court,  church, 
bungalows,  gardens,  out-offices,  all  empty,  all  looking  as  if  a 
plague  had  devastated  the  station  in  a night.’ 1 

A plague  had  devastated  the  station,  not  in  a night,  but  in  a 
year,  or  rather  series  of  years.  Kurnal,  when  John  Lawrence 
had  last  known  it,  had  been  one  of  the  largest,  healthiest,  and 
most  popular  of  the  cantonments  in  India.  Its  local  advantages 
were  great  for  such  a purpose  ; for  the  country  was  open  and 
suitable  for  the  evolutions  of  troops  ; the  soil  was  light  and 
sandy,  and  therefore  conducive  to  health  ; there  was  plenty  of 
grass  and  water  ; lastly,  the  two  great  roads  from  Delhi  and 
Meerut  converged  there,  and,  standing  as  the  place  did  on  the 
direct  highway  between  the  Punjab  and  Hindustan,  it  had  been, 
as  I have  already  pointed  out,  the  historic  battlefield  of  India. 
What  then  had  turned  it  into  such  a city  of  the  dead  ? It  was 


Life  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence , vol.  i.  p.  442. 


152 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 842-46 


not  that  the  general  condition  of  the  people  had  deteriorated. 
On  the  contrary,  there  were  signs  of  improvement  every- 
where. In  1833-35,  when  John  Lawrence  had  been  stationed 
there  before,  what  between  the  oppressive  assessments  of  pre- 
vious years  and  the  famine,  the  people  had  been  at  their  lowest 
ebb,  and  many  villages  had  been  completely  broken  up.  But 
he  had  not  left  till  he  had  seen,  and  had  in  great  measure  caused, 
the  turn  of  the  tide.  He  had  brought  order  out  of  anarchy,  had 
postponed  the  payment  of  the  land-tax,  and  had  set  on  foot  its 
permanent  reduction,  a work  which  others  had,  afterwards,  been 
able  satisfactorily  to  complete.  What  then  was  the  cause  of  the 
epidemic  and  of  the  distress  which  it  had  brought  in  its  train  ? 
Fretting  at  the  want  of  work,  and  finding  that  some  fifty  per 
cent,  of  the  troops  were  struck  down  by  fever,  and  that  the  rest 
were  so  enfeebled  that  ‘ there  was  not  a man  of  them  who  would 
carry  his  arms  or  march  a stage,’ while  the  natives  in  the  adjoin- 
ing villages  were  suffering  equally,  he  spent  his  spare  time  in  an 
elaborate  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  the  epidemic  and  its  possible 
remedies.  The  results  he  embodied  in  a valuable  paper,  the 
first  of  the  kind  in  my  possession,  which  he  put  together  at 
Delhi  in  the  following  spring. 

The  epidemic  he  traced,  not,  as  so  many  high  authorities 
have  since  done,  to  canal  irrigation  in  itself,  thus,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  discouraging  the  chief  safeguard  against  famine,  and 
the  cheapest  means  of  intercommunication,  but  rather  to  the 
neglect  of  proper  precautions  in  carrying  out  that  irrigation,  to 
the  masses  of  herbage  and  brushwood  which  had  been  allowed 
to  grow  on  the  canal  banks,  and  to  the  increased  cultivation  of 
rice.  The  inhabitants  of  that  part  of  India,  it  should  be  re- 
membered, unlike  the  natives  of  Bengal,  had  till  lately  been  ac- 
customed to  live,  not  on  rice,  but  on  wheat,  barley,  and  pulses 
of  various  kinds.  These  last  crops  need  comparatively  little 
water,  whereas  rice,  to  do  well,  needs  to  be  incessantly  flooded. 

‘ Rice  in  fact,  grows  only  in  a marsh,  and  in  the  last  few  years 
it  had  come  to  be  cultivated  literally  up  to  the  bungalows.’  The 
cantonment  was  quite  surrounded  on  two  sides  by  rice-fields. 
Here  was  one  fertile  source  of  mischief,  and  the  neglect  on  the 
part  of  the  military  authorities  which  allowed  this  had  also  al- 
lowed vast  masses  of  refuse  to  accumulate.  ‘The  only  scaveng- 
ers were  the  kites  and  vultures,  the  pariah  dogs  and  pigs.’  The 
bodies  of  animals  and  even  of  men  might  be  seen  lying  about 
where  they  had  died,  without  even  a handful  of  earth  thrown 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


153 


over  them,  nuisances  which  John  Lawrence  used  to  ferret  out 
for  himself  in  his  early  rides,  and  order  his  own  police  to  re- 
move. The  practical  remedies  which  he  suggested  for  this  state 
of  things  were  the  absolute  prohibition  of  rice  cultivation  within 
four  miles  of  the  cantonments,  the  regulation  of  the  height  of 
the  water  in  the  canals,  and  the  careful  removal  of  herbage  from 
their  banks,  so  that  no  slimy  ground  or  putrid  vegetation  might 
be  exposed  to  the  burning  rays  of  the  sun  ; an  improved  system 
of  drainage  ; a strict  system  of  sanitary  police  ; the  removal  of 
the  bazaars  to  a distance  from  all  barracks,  bungalows,  and  hos- 
pitals, and  their  reconstruction  with  wide  wind-swept  passages 
or  streets. 

All  this  may  seem  obvious  enough  now,  but  it  was  not  so 
obvious  then.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  is  histori- 
cally interesting  as  showing  the  strong  bent  of  his  mind  thus 
early  towards  that  sanitary  reform  and  that  peaceful  progress 
which  was  the  chief  aim  and  the  chief  triumph — not  gunpowder 
and  not  glory — of  his  rule  as  Viceroy.  He  did  not  save  the 
Kurnal  cantonment  from  condemnation  by  his  suggested  re- 
forms. It  was  condemned  already.  But  the  epidemic  there, 
and  the  stimulus  it  gave  him,  did  something  towards  enabling 
him  to  save  many  thousands  of  lives  thereafter  throughout 
India  ; just  as  his  bitter  experience  in  early  life  of  red-tape  at 
Paniput,  and  of  the  famine-stricken  poverty  of  the  masses  at 
Gorgaon  and  Etawa,  did  much  to  determine  the  strong  convic- 
tion on  which  he  ever  afterwards  acted,  that  tools  ought  always 
to  go  to  those  who  could  best  handle  them,  and  that  the  first  duty 
of  an  Indian  ruler  was  not  the  extension  of  the  empire  nor  the 
pampering  of  the  rich  few,  but  the  care  of  the  poverty-stricken 
millions. 

Two  other  kindred  subjects  appear  to  have  attracted  John 
Lawrence’s  attention  and  to  have  especially  touched  his  heart 
during  his  residence  at  Kurnal— the  ‘ purveyance  system  ’ and 
the  condition  of  the  native  women.  By  the  purveyance  system 
I mean  the  system  which  obliged  the  villagers  who  lay  along 
the  route  of  great  personages,  like  the  Governor-General  or  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  not  only  to  furnish  carts  and  beasts  of 
burden  for  the  use  of  their  gigantic  camps,  but  often  to  provide 
them  at  great  loss,  with  no  remuneration  at  all.  The  Governor- 
General  had  just  then,  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  discovered 
that  it  was  always  necessary  to  go  to  the  hills  in  the  hot  season, 
and  his  huge  following  must  be  supported  somehow.  If  the 


154 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


native  police  were  employed  to  collect  the  carts  and  animals, 
they  took  to  plundering  the  natives  themselves ; if  they  were 
not  employed,  no  carts  or  animals  were  forthcoming.  When,  as 
often  happened,  the  animals  were  called  for  during  ploughing 
or  harvest  time,  it  is  clear  that  no  ordinary  rate  of  hire  would 
be  an  adequate  remuneration,  and  very  often  this  was  wanting 
or  fell  into  the  wrong  hands.  The  odium  of  this,  and  of  other 
abuses  connected  with  the  system,  of  course  fell  on  the  Govern- 
ment, and  rightly  enough,  argued  John  Lawrence,  ‘in  so  far  as 
we  do  not  make  our  servants  behave  better.  Natives  in  office 
are  particularly  bad  ; sepoys,  policemen,  officers  of  the  revenue, 
all  seem  to  think  it  part  of  their  perquisites  to  take  everything 
for  nothing.’  He  then  goes  on  to  suggest  remedies  which  it  is 
unnecessary  to  particularise,  as  they  have  long  since  been  ap- 
plied. 

The  condition  of  the  native  women  touched  him  even  more 
keenly.  Men  thought  nothing  of  selling  their  wives  or  those 
of  their  deceased  brothers,  or  forcing  them  to  live  with  them- 
selves. At  the  best,  women  were  mere  drudges,  hard  worked 
and  ill  treated,  and  suicide  was  very  common  among  them.  In 
Gorgaon  in  1835  John  had  ascertained  that  upwards  of  five 
hundred  women  had  been  found  drowned  in  wells,  and  though 
accident  would  account  for  some  of  these,  the  wells  in  that 
country  being  left  in  a very  exposed  and  dangerous  condition, 
yet  it  was  certain,  he  thought,  that  the  greater  number  had 
committed  suicide  or  had  fallen  in  by  foul  means.  The  monot- 
ony of  his  hours  spent  in  cutcherry  was  sometimes  relieved  by 
cases  which,  tragical  in  themselves,  yet  wore  a semi-comic 
aspect.  One  day  a man  lodged  a complaint  against  a friend 
for  having  carried  off  his  wife  and  sold  her  to  another  man 
for  thirty-six  rupees  ! John  Lawrence  at  first  disbelieved  the 
story,  but  it  turned  out  to  be  true.  The  culprit  had  taken  ad- 
vantage of  the  absence  of  the  husband  and  the  illness  of  the 
wife  to  put  her  in  a dhoolie  and  carry  her  off.  The  third  man 
acknowledged  the  purchase,  and  said  the  woman  had  lived  with 
him  contentedly  as  his  wife  ! The  guilty  parties  were  sentenced 
to  six  months  in  gaol,  and  the  husband  and  wife  went  away 
quite  satisfied,  ‘neither  of  them  appearing  to  think  that  they 
were  any  the  worse  for  what  had  happened.’ 

A much  more  pathetic  story,  and  one  calculated  to  stir  the 
deepest  feelings  of  the  human  heart,  had  come  before  John 
Lawrence  in  cutcherry,  during  his  previous  residence  in  the 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


155 


same  district,  and  may  be  fitly  inserted  here.  It  shall  be  told 
in  his  own  language,  for  it  would  be  difficult  to  improve 
upon  it. 

The  Leper. 

Of  all  diseases  that  afflict  humanity,  the  leprosy  has  always  appeared 
to  me  the  most  loathsome  and  hideous.  In  no  disease  is  the  condition 
of  the  sufferer  more  helpless,  and  yet  there  is  none  in  which  assistance 
and  consolation  are  so  difficult  to  obtain.  So  malignant  is  the  disorder, 
so  infectious  is  its  nature,  that  every  one  flies  from  the  leper.  To  touch 
his  skin,  nay,  even  his  very  clothes,  to  inhale  the  same  atmosphere,  is 
said  to  be  contagious.  Though  the  effects  are  so  fatal  and  so  certain, 
its  progress  is  usually  slow  and  insidious.  From  the  first  slight  speck 
on  the  hand  or  lip,  until  it  spreads  over  the  whole  body,  years  may 
elapse,  and  during  this  period  the  health  of  the  person  does  not  seem 
to  suffer.  He  pursues  his  daily  occupations,  and  though  no  one  will 
actually  touch  him  or  allow  him  to  eat  out  of  the  same  dish  with  him, 
men  do  not  consider  it  dangerous  to  associate  with  him.  I recollect  a 
native  officer  of  a cavalry  contingent,  a good  soldier,  and  a respectable 
man,  who  did  his  duty  for  many  years  under  this  affliction  ; and  I have 
often  seen  the  men  of  his  troop  lounging  on  the  same  cushions  with 
him.  As  the  disease,  however,  spreads,  the  leper  is  gradually  shunned. 
Friends,  kinsmen,  and  relatives,  all  forsake  him.  The  mother  who  has 
nursed  him,  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  all  fly  the  leper.  A hut  is  built  for 
him  far  from  the  haunts  of  his  fellow-men,  and  daily  his  food  is  placed 
on  a distant  stone,  to  which,  on  the  departure  of  the  ministering  hand, 
he  may  drag  his  weary  body. 

These  thoughts  have  been  suggested  by  an  extraordinary  and  horrible 
incident  which  happened  some  years  ago  in  the  district  where  I was 
magistrate.  I was  sitting  in  court,  busily  engaged  in  my  duty,  when  a 
villager  in  the  crowd  called  out  that  he  had  a petition  of  much  impor- 
tance to  present,  and  prayed  that  I would  listen  to  it  at  once.  * I would 
not  put  it  into  the  petition  box,’  said  he,  ‘ as  I was  anxious  to  give  it  to 
you  with  my  own  hand.’  As  I assented  to  his  request,  he  came  up  and 
laid  his  petition  on  the  table.  The  complaint  was  from  a leper,  a re- 
lation of  the  man  before  me.  It  ran  thus  : — 

‘ Hail,  cherisher  of  the  afflicted  ! 

‘ Be  it  known  to  your  enlightened  mind  that  your  devoted  servant 
has  been  a leper  for  many  years.  My  limbs  have  fallen  off  piece  by 
piece  ; my  whole  body  has  become  a mass  of  corruption.  I am  weary 
of  life  ; I wish  to  die.  My  life  is  a plague  and  disgust  to  the  whole 
village,  and  my  death  is  earnestly  longed  for.  It  is  well  known  to  all 
that  for  a leper  to  consent  to  die,  to  permit  himself  to  be  buried  alive, 
is  approved  of  by  the  gods,  who  will  never  afflict  another  individual  of 
his  village  with  a similar  malady.  I therefore  solicit  your  permission  to 
be  buried  alive.  The  whole  village  wishes  it,  and  I am  happy  and  con- 


156 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


tent  to  die.  You  are  the  ruler  of  the  land,  and  without  your  leave  it 
would  be  criminal.  Hoping  that  I may  obtain  my  prayer,  I pray  that 
the  sun  of  prosperity  may  ever  shine  on  you. 

* (Signed)  Ram  Buksh,  Leper.’ 

It  certainly  takes  much  to  move  me,  but  I confess  to  have  been  fairly 
astounded  on  hearing  this  petition.  I have  seen  curious  things  in  my 
day,  and  have  heard  extraordinary  requests  preferred,  but  this  exceeded 
anything  of  the  kind.  ‘ Who  are  you  ? What  is  your  name  ? Are  you 
a relation  of  the  leper  ? Is  he  mad  ? He  certainly  cannot  be  in  his 
right  mind.’  After  receiving  answers  to  these  and  similar  enquiries,  I 
asked,  ‘ Where  is  the  man  ? ’ The  villager  replied,  ‘ He  is  outside 
the  house.  We  have  had  him  carried  here  on  a dhoolie — a kind  of 
cot  carried  on  men’s  shoulders — if  you  will  come  outside  you  can 
speak  to  him  and  satisfy  yourself  that  what  I have  stated  is  true.’  I 
rose  up  and  followed  the  man.  There  was  a dhoolie  placed  under  a 
tree  in  the  shade,  and  at  a little  distance  stood  a group  of  villagers. 
‘ There  he  is,  and  there  are  his  father  and  brothers,  with  some  of  the 
headmen  of  our  village,’  said  my  guide,  pointing  to  them.  I immediately 
entered  into  conversation  with  them,  and  they  all  confirmed  the  first 
speaker’s  statement.  The  wretched  man  himself,  who  appeared  to  be 
in  an  advanced  stage  of  the  disease,  was  a most  hideous  spectacle.  His 
arms  were  gone  from  the  elbows  downwards,  and  his 'legs  downwards 
from  his  knees,  and  his  whole  body  was  a mass  of  corruption.  ‘ O 
Sahib  ! ’ he  cried,  ‘ for  God’s  sake  listen  to  my  petition  ; let  me  be 
buried  alive.  I have  lived  too  long  ; let  me  die  ! ’ ‘ My  poor  fellow,’  I 

replied,  ‘ it  is  not  in  my  power  to  comply  with  your  request  ; ’tis  a sad 
business,  but  it  would  be  unlawful  ; it  would  be  murder  ; it  cannot  be 
allowed.’  As  the  man  began  to  wail  and  scream  I ordered  him  to  be 
carried  away,  after  charging  his  relations  to  take  every  care  of  him. 

After  the  court  was  over,  being  in  conversation  with  an  intelligent  na- 
tive, who  had  been  present  during  the  day,  and  had  witnessed  the  scene, 
he  asked  me  why  I had  refused  the  leper’s  petition.  ‘ He  must  die  soon  ; 
he  is  in  great  misery  ; it  would  have  benefited  both  him  and  his  village,’ 
remarked  the  man.  ‘ What,’  said  I,  ‘do  you  really  believe  that  no  one 
of  the  community  will  again  be  a leper  ?’  ‘ Yes,’  replied  he,  ‘ and  so 

does  the  whole  country.’  ‘ Well,’  I remarked,  ‘ there  is  no  reasoning  on 
points  of  belief,  but  to  me  it  appears  ridiculous.  At  any  rate,  under  the 
Company’s  rule  such  an  act  would  be  criminal.  I have  no  power  to 
grant  the  permission,  even  were  I willing.’  ‘ It  is  all  very  true  what  the 
hazoor  has  observed;  but  you  will  find  that  the  village  will  bury  him 
alive  without  leave,’  replied  the  native,  as  he  made  his  salaam  and 
retired. 

Thinking  such  a thing  to  be  out  of  the  question,  I dismissed  the  mat- 
ter from  my  mind.  But  a few  days  afterwards  I received  a report  from 
the  police  officer  of  an  out  station  to  the  effect  that,  hearing  that  a man 
had  been  buried  alive,  he  had  visited  the  spot,  and,  to  ascertain  the  fact, 


1 842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


157 


had  dug  up  the  body,  which  proved  to  be  that  of  the  leper.  On  the 
parties  being  arrested,  it  appeared  that  they  were  the  same  individuals 
who  had  solicited  permission  from  me  in  the  manner  I have  described. 
In  the  investigation  which  ensued,  I found  that  on  their  return  from 
the  unsuccessful  application  to  me,  they  had  held  a consultation  of  the 
whole  village,  when  it  was  determined  that  the  leper  should  be  buried. 
This,  accordingly,  was  done  in  the  open  day,  with  all  due  solemnity,  the 
whole  population  attending.  The  headmen  of  the  village,  the  watchmen, 
and  other  local  functionaries,  were  committed  to  take  their  trial  at  the 
sessions,  where  they  all  pleaded  guilty,  and  were  condemned  to  imprison- 
ment. Punishment  was  no  doubt  necessary,  though  I am  happy  to  say 
it  was  lenient.  I think  the  maximum  was  not  more  than  six  months’ 
confinement  in  the  district  jail.  I could  not  but  think  they  were  more 
to  be  pitied  than  blamed,  and  that,  however  revolting  to  our  feelings 
was  the  manner  of  putting  the  unfortunate  creature  to  death,  in  his  own 
words,  ‘he  had  lived  too  long.’ 

Delhi : March  7,  1845. 

The  man  who  could  listen  to  such  a tale  as  this  unmoved,  or 
who  could  pass  many  years  in  a position  of  authority  amidst  a 
people  so  quick-witted  and  yet  so  credulous,  so  impoverished 
and  yet  so  uncomplaining,  so  tractable  and  yet  so  tenacious  of 
their  narrow  rights,  so  long  and  so  often  overrun  by  foreign 
conquerors,  and  yet  so  unalterably  attached  to  their  ancestral 
manners  and  creeds,  and  then  fail  to  feel  towards  them  some- 
what as  a father  feels  to  a wayward  but  a helpless  and  trustful 
child,  is  hardly  to  be  found,  and  if  found  he  would  be  little  to 
be  envied.  Englishmen  there  have  been  and  still  are  in  India, 
who,  priding  themselves  on  their  race  or  their  colour,  their 
superior  strength  of  body  or  strength  of  will,  despise  the  natives, 
keep  aloof  from  them,  call  them  by  the  opprobrious  name  of 
‘nigger,’  and  strike  or  maltreat  them  in  a way  in  which  they 
would  not  venture  to  treat  a European.  But  such  Englishmen 
have  happily  always  been  in  a small  minority.  They  may  be 
found  sometimes  among  passing  visitors  to  India,  among  the 
youngest  and  most  empty-headed  officers  of  the  army,  or  among 
the  frivolous  and  fashionable  and  scandal-loving  society  of  the 
great  towns.  But  they  are  not  to  be  found'  in  the  ranks  of  the 
civil  service,  or  amongst  those  soldier  statesmen  who  have  built 
up  and  have  preserved  our  Indian  Empire.  It  is  not  in  the  writ- 
ings, the  conversation,  or  the  acts  of  men  like  Sir  Thomas  Monro 
or  Lord  Metcalfe,  like  Outram  or  Havelock,  like  Henry  or  John 
Lawrence,  and  of  the  hundreds  of  good  men  and  true  of  whom 
these  are  but  the  most  brilliant  representatives,  that  we  can  find 


i58 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


a word  or  deed  indicative  of  other  than  the  deepest  and  most 
affectionate  interest  in  the  helpless  and  voiceless  millions  over 
whom  they  rule.  John  Lawrence  never  weighed  his  words  too 
carefully.  If  he  thought  a man  a knave  or  a fool,  he  generally 
called  him  so  to  his  face.  If  he  had  to  strike  at  all,  he  struck  a 
knock-down  blow.  Yet  in  the  thousands  of  his  letters  written 
off  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  that  I have  read,  I have  not 
come  upon  a single  expression  which  would  wound  the  pride  of 
the  most  sensitive  of  natives  ; nor  does  he,  in  one  single  in- 
stance, use  the  opprobrious  term  which  is  the  very  first  to  come 
to  the  mouth  of  too  many  young  officers,  or  casual  visitors  in 
India.  These  are  the  men  who  know  the  natives,  who  sympathise 
with  them  and  have  learned  to  love  them  ; who,  in  the  spirit  of 
a truly  imperial  race,  look  upon  themselves  as  the  servants  of 
those  whom  they  rule,  and  rule  by  serving  them  ; who  do  every- 
thing that  in  them  lies  to  bridge  over  the  yawning  gulf  which, 
by  our  fate  or  by  our  fault,  still  separates  colour  from  colour, 
race  from  race,  and  creed  from  creed.  Till  that  gulf  can  be,  in 
some  measure,  bridged  over,  whatever  our  good  intentions,  and 
whatever  the  benefits  of  our  rule — and  they  are  neither  few  nor 
small — we  still,  disguise  it  as  we  may,  hold  India  by  the  sword  ; 
and  so  long  as  we  hold  it  by  the  sword  alone,  we  hold  it  by  the 
least  satisfactory  and  the  most  precarious  of  tenures. 

In  November,  1843,  the  ‘acting’  appointment  at  Kurnal 
came  to  an  end,  and  John  Lawrence  travelled  back,  bag  and 
baggage,  over  the  well-known  ground,  to  take  up  another  tem- 
porary appointment  at  Delhi.  It  was  not  till  towards  the  end 
of  the  following  year  that  the  ‘substantive  ’ post  became  va- 
cant, and  then,  at  last,  the  right  man  was  found  in  the  right 
place,  and  John  Lawrence  became,  in  his  own  right,  Magistrate 
and  Collector  of  the  two  districts  of  Delhi  and  Paniput.  During 
these  last  two  years  his  salary  had  been  less  than  half  of  that 
which  he  had  received  before  he  left  India  on  furlough,  and 
it  must  have  been  difficult  enough  for  a man  who  was  so  hos- 
pitable and  so  liberal,  to  maintain  his  wife,  his  child,  his  ser- 
vants, and  his  two  pair  of  horses  on  so  narrow  an  income.  lie 
had  now  just  attained  in  rank  and  emoluments  to  the  position 
he  had  held  before  he  left  India  invalided  ; and  in  the  general 
depression  which  prevailed  in  India  as  the  result  of  the  Afghan 
war,  and  that  other  war  which  followed,  and,  if  possible,  out- 
stripped it  in  iniquity — the  war  with  the  Ameers  of  Scinde — his 
contemporaries  found  themselves  in  much  the  same  deadlock 


1842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


159 


as  he  did.  In  November,  1844,  a second  daughter,  Emily,  was 
born,  just  at  the  time  when  her  father’s  means  became  more 
adequate  to  his  needs  and  his  deserts. 

Of  the  work  done  during  the  next  two  years  as  Magistrate 
and  Collector  of  Delhi  there  is,  unfortunately,  little  to  tell  ; 
but  from  what  I have  been  able  to  record  of  his  work  during  his 
earlier  sojourn  there,  we  may  doubtless  infer  the  general  char- 
acter of  the  later.  There  were  the  same  general  elements  of 
turbulence,  disaffection,  and  difficulty  : the  corrupt  palace  of 
the  effete  Mogul,  who  was  now  some  ten  years  nearer  to  his 
total  dissolution  ; the  swashbucklers  who  infested  his  court  ; 
the  large  criminal  class  and  the  mongrel  multitude  of  the  his- 
toric capital.  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  recollects  the  reputa- 
tion which  John  Lawrence  acquired,  and  which  reached  even 
to  Allahabad,  by  the  masterly  manoeuvring  of  a small  body  of 
police  with  whom  he  descended  on  a nest  of  gamblers  and  cut- 
throats, ‘ budmashes  ’ of  every  description,  and  took  them  all 
prisoners,  without  shedding  a drop  of  blood,  and  without  cre- 
ating even  so  much  as  a disturbance. 

During  the  spring  months  of  1845,  he  found  time,  with  the 
help  of  his  ever  faithful  amanuensis  and  companion,  to  write 
down  the  graphic  stories  of  his  earlier  life  in  India,  of  which 
I have  reproduced  so  many.  He  also  wrote  some  excellent 
letters  to  the  editor  of  the  ‘ Delhi  Gazette’  on  social  subjects, 
such  as  jail  reform  and  the  organisation  of  the  police  ; and  from 
these  it  may  be  well  to  quote  a sentence  or  two,  as  illustrative 
of  his  abrupt  style  and  mode  of  thought  at  this  period  of  his 
life.  It  had  been  proposed  by  Government  to  appoint  a super- 
intendent of  jails  in  the  North-West  Provinces.  This  proposal 
John  Lawrence  opposed  as  expensive  and  useless,  and  likely  to 
stop  other  and  more  important  reforms. 

To  give  the  North-West  Provinces  an  itinerant  superintendent  of  jails 
on  2,500  rupees  a month,  while  the  darogahs  (or  governors),  who  do  all 
the  work,  receive  only  twenty-five  rupees  a month,  is  to  begin  your  work 
at  the  wrong  end.  What  real  control  can  such  an  ambulatory  official 
possess  ? Why,  it  would  take  him  a year  to  go  round  and  give  each  dis- 
trict a flying  visit ! But  when  at  Saharunpore,  how  is  he  to  know  what 
is  going  on  at  Banda,  or  Benares,  or  Gorruckpore? — or,  when  at  one  of 
these  latter  places,  how  is  he  to  control  acts  committed  in  the  Rohilcund 
and  Delhi  jails  ? I suppose  some  will  say  that  it  can  be  done  by  state- 
ments and  returns  ; that  is  to  say,  all  the  magistrates  and  joint-magis- 
trates, in  addition  to  their  present  duties,  will  be  made  to  worry  their 


i6o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 842-46 


brains  in  drawing  out  returns,  which  if  prepared  are  never  read,  and  if 
read  are  never  digested,  and  if  digested  are  not  worth  the  trouble  they 
have  cost — for  five  out  of  six  are  all  fudge. 

Having  demolished  what  he  considered  to  be  a sham  reform 
which  could  only  be  carried  out  at  great  expense,  he  goes  on  to 
suggest  real  reforms,  such  as  he  was  himself  able  afterwards  to 
set  on  foot  in  the  Punjab,  and  indeed  throughout  India  : the 
establishment  of  central  as  well  as  of  district  jails ; the  classifi- 
cation of  criminals  ; the  appointment  of  first-rate  jail  doctors  ; 
the  increase  of  the  pay  of  those  underpaid  officials  on  whom  all 
the  drudgery  and  all  the  labour  falls,  and  on  whose  character 
so  much  depends. 

Let  the  magistrate  be  ever  so  active  or  efficient,  if  this  personage  be  a 
rascal  (and  such  he  cannot  fail  to  be  under  the  present  system,  however 
smooth  and  plausible  matters  may  appear  to  the  eye),  there  will  not  fail 
to  be  an  undercurrent  of  roguery  going  on,  which  would  astonish  the  un- 
initiated. In  the  meantime  you  might  get  capital  statements  drawn  out, 
which  would  tell  you  about  as  much  of  the  real  state  of  your  jail  as  I 
could  tell  of  Timbuctoo.  People  are  fond  of  remarking  that  the  natives 
are  great  rogues,  and  no  doubt  many  are,  but  who  makes  them  so,  in 
great  measure  ? Who  places  such  temptations  in  their  way  that  they 
must  be  more  than  men  if  they  resist  ? I really  believe  that  the  majority 
of  Europeans  under  similar  temptations  would  not  be  a whit  more  hon- 
est. We  all  know  that  it  was  Lord  Cornwallis  who  made  the  civilians 
honest.  In  1834,  when  the  great  change  in  the  customs  took  place,  and 
European  assistance  was  so  extensively  introduced,  the  first  act  was  to 
raise  the  emoluments.  In  like  manner,  look  at  the  great  body  of  tahsil- 
dars  (native  collectors),  how  greatly  their  condition  has  been  ameliorated 
of  late  years,  and  how  much  their  character  has  improved  in  consequence. 
I verily  believe  that  for  one  respectable  tahsildar  in  those  days  you  will 
now  find  ten. 

In  November,  1845,  came  one  of  the  turning-points  in  John 
Lawrence’s  life.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  owed  nothing  to  the 
favour  or  attention  of  the  great.  He  had  helped  fortune  far 
more  than  fortune  had  helped  him.  He  had  passed  through  all 
the  grades  of  the  Civil  Service,  perhaps  at  a slower,  certainly 
not  at  a faster,  rate  than  the  average  civilian.  Any  special 
amount  of  experience  he  had  acquired  was  of  his  own  seeking, 
and  at  the  cost  of  enormous  labour.  1 1 is  fame,  so  far  as  it  had 
yet  spread,  was  the  result  of  what  he  had  done,  and  of  nothing 
else.  Unlike  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe,  with  whom,  in  view  of  the 
high  elevation  which  each  ultimately  attained,  it  is  most  natural 


1842-46 


MAGISTRATE  OF  DELHI. 


l6l 


to  compare  him,  and  who  was  taken  under  the  wing  of  Lord 
Wellesley  from  the  moment  of  his  arrival,  and  was  pushed  rap- 
idly on  from  one  appointment  to  another,  John  Lawrence  owed 
nothing  to  the  patronage  of  Government  Mouse.  His  life  in 
India  had  covered  the  greater  portion  of  the  careers  of  three 
Governors-General — Lord  William  Bentinck,  Lord  Auckland, 
and  Lord  Ellenborough — and  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  any 
one  of  these  did  so  much  as  know  him  even  by  name.  The  con- 
trast in  this  respect  between  him  and  his  brother  I lenry  is  marked. 
For  George  Lawrence  had  obtained  for  his  brother  Henry,  when 
he  was  only  twenty-six  years  of  age,  an  appointment  in  the 
Horse  Artillery  by  direct  application  to  the  Commander-in- 
Chief.  In  the  following  year,  by  a similar  application  to  the 
Governor-General,  he  had  procured  him  an  appointment  in 
the  Revenue  Survey.  In  1839,  again,  his  friend  Frederick 
Currie  had  procured  for  him  from  the  succeeding  Governor- 
General  an  appointment  at  the  frontier  station  of  Feroze- 
pore,  ‘thus  helping  him,’  as  he  said,  ‘to  put  his  foot  into  the 
stirrup,  from  which  he  could  only  have  to  put  himself  into  the 
saddle.’  Not  that  there  was  a tinge  of  nepotism  or  undue  fav- 
ouritism in  any  one  of  these  appointments.  The  donors  in  each 
instance  put  one  of  the  best  possible  men  into  a place  for  which 
he  was  more  than  fit  ; but  what  I mean  to  point  out  is,  that  up 
to  this  time  of  his  life,  John  Lawrence’s  name,  from  whatever 
causes,  had  not  been  brought  before  the  dispensers  of  public 
patronage,  and  he  owed  nothing  to  them.  But  more  stormy 
times  were  now  coming  on,  and  by  a happy  accident  he  was 
brought  into  contact  with  the  new  Governor-General  at  the 
outset  of  his  Indian  career. 

Lord  Ellenborough,  with  the  glory  or  the  shame  of  the  an- 
nexation of  Scinde  indelibly  attaching  to  him,  had  been  recalled 
in  the  mid-career  of  his  contumacious  eccentricities  by  the  mas- 
ters whom  he  had  throughout  resolved  to  treat  as  though  they 
were  his  servants.  The  laconic  and  world-famous  despatch, 
‘ Peccavi,  I have  Scinde,’  fathered  by  ‘ Punch’  upon  the  splen- 
did and  self-willed  soldier,  was  the  confession  of  a grim  truth, 
the  whole  responsibility  for  which  his  proud  humility  would 
have  been  quite  content  to  bear.  But  this,  unfortunately,  could 
not  be.  It  had  to  be  borne  by  the  nation  at  large,  and  the  an- 
nexation of  Scinde  remains,  and  will  always  remain,  one  of  the 
deepest  blots  on  our  national  escutcheon.  An  act  condemned 
not  only  by  such  chivalrous  soldiers  as  Sir  James  Outram,  and 

Vol.  I.— II 


i62 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 842-46 


such  high  civil  authorities  as  Sir  Henry  Pottinger  and  Captain 
Eastwick,  who  had  been  for  years  upon  the  spot,  and  whq  knew 
the  circumstances  best,  but  unanimously  disapproved  of,  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  recently  told  us,  by  a Cabinet  which  contained 
men  of  such  varied  ability  and  such  vast  knowledge  as  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  as  Lord  Derby  and  Sir 
Henry  Hardinge,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  himself,  when  once  it  was 
done,  could  not,  it  was  thought,  well  be  undone.  To  have  un- 
done it,  would  have  involved— so  the  Government,  looking  at 
their  imperial  responsibilities,  determined — a wrong  the  more  ; 
and  so  they  were  obliged  to  condone,  and  to  hand  down  to  pos- 
terity, that  most  terrible  of  possessions — a heritage  of  triumph- 
ant wrong.  Truly,  the  provincial  rulers  who  use  the  power 
which  is  of  necessity  entrusted  to  them  in  an  empire  with  such 
vast  and  such  widely  scattered  dependencies  as  England,  to  in- 
volve it  in  an  unjust  war,  or  an  uncalled-for  annexation — who 
thus  force  the  hand  and  conscience  of  the  nation  beforehand, 
and  bind  up  with  its  history  for  all  time  the  consciousness  of 
injustice, — incur  the  most  fearful  of  responsibilities.  It  may  be 
necessary  to  entrust  them  with  the  power,  and  it  may,  some- 
times, also  be  necessary  to  call  it  into  action,  but  if  they  misuse 
it  they  should  feel  that  they  do  so,  like  the  proposers  of  a new 
law  in  the  conservative  Greek  colony  of  old,  with  a rope  around 
their  necks. 

The  state  of  the  regions  beyond  the  Sutlej,  seething  with  a 
brave  and  turbulent  soldiery,  who,  for  some  years  past — ever 
since,  in  fact,  the  strong  hand  of  Runjeet  Sing,  the  lion  of  the 
Punjab,  had  been  withdrawn — had  set  their  own  government 
at  defiance,  and  might,  it  was  believed,  at  any  moment  burst 
upon  British  India,  seemed  to  call  for  the  best  soldier  at  our 
command  to  succeed  Lord  Ellenborough.  He  was  found  in  the 
person  of  the  veteran,  who,  as  a subaltern,  had  received  four 
wounds,  had  had  four  horses  shot  under  him,  and  had  won  nine 
medals  in  the  Peninsula  ; who,  as  a Lieutenant-Colonel,  had 
turned  the  tide  in  the  battle  of  Albuera — itself  the  turning- 
point  of  the  Peninsular  War  ; had  afterwards  bled  at  Ligny,  and 
was  the  special  favourite  of  both  Blucher  and  Wellington — the 
high-souled  and  chivalrous  Sir  Henry  Hardinge.  He  had  been 
enjoined  with  more  than  usual  solemnity  by  the  Court  of  Di- 
rectors to  keep  the  peace,  if  peace  were  possible,  and,  with  pro- 
bably more  than  the  usual  sincerity  of  newly  appointed  Gov- 
crnors-General,  he  had  pledged  himself  to  do  so.  ‘ A purer 


1842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


163 

man,’ so  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  last  surviving  and  the  most  bril- 
liant member  of  the  Cabinet  in  which  he  served,  has  recently 
remarked,  ‘a  more  honourable  man,  and,  great  soldier  as  he 
was,  a man  less  capable  of  being  dazzled  by  military  glory, 
never  entered  the  councils  of  his  sovereign.’  But  events  were 
too  strong  for  him.  He  found  that  the  preparations  which  had 
been  made  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier  by  his  battle-loving 
predecessor  were  inadequate  to  the  daily  increasing  danger  ; 
and  with  consummate  skill,  still  hoping  for  peace  but  preparing 
for  war,  he  managed,  quite  unobserved  by  the  Indian  public, 
within  little  more  than  a year  after  he  had  reached  the  country, 
to  double  the  number  of  our  troops  on  the  threatened  positions. 

So  true  a soldier  would  not  be  content  without  a personal 
inspection  of  the  frontier  line.  His  road  lay  through  Delhi, 
and  on  November  n,  1845,  he  met,  for  the  first  time,  its  Col- 
lector and  Magistrate — the  subject  of  this  biography.  A sol- 
dier born  and  bred,  he  was  not  likely  to  know  much  of  civil 
matters  ; but  he  was  able,  as  the  result  showed,  to  appreciate, 
almost  at  a glance,  the  capacities,  military  and  civil,  latent  and 
developed,  of  John  Lawrence.  Each  at  first  sight  was  favourably 
impressed  with  the  other — the  Governer-General  with  the  en- 
ergy,  the  sagacity,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Magistrate,  who 
accompanied  him  in  his  rides  over  the  ruined  cities  which  sur- 
rounded the  city  of  the  living,  and  endeavoured  to  explain  to 
him  all  the  mysteries  of  irrigation  and  of  revenue  collection  ; 
the  Magistrate  with  the  frankness  and  friendliness  and  military 
spirit  of  the  Governor-General.  ‘ I went  out,’  writes  John  to 
his  brother  Henry,  in  one  of  the  earliest  of  his  letters  which 
has  come  into  my  hands,  ‘on  the  nth  to  meet  the  Governor- 
General.  He  came  in  yesterday.  I like  him  much  ; he  is  amia- 
ble and  considerate,  but  does  not  give  me  any  idea  of  being  a 
man  of  ability.  Currie  and  Benson  are  the  only  men  of  stand- 
ing about  him  : the  rest  are  mere  logs.  Everything  breathes  a 
pacific  air  ; I do  not  think  there  will  be  a war.  He  leaves  here 
on  the  19th,  and  goes  straight  to  Umballa.  He  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  much  at  home  on  civil  matters,  or  to  interest 
himself  on  such  subjects,  but  he  is  wide  awake  in  all  military 
affairs.’ 

In  another  letter,  written  a few  days  later,  November  27,  a 
little  light  is  thrown  on  his  own  doings.  ‘ The  troops  from 
Meerut  have  been  called  off  in  a great  hurry,  I believe  by 
Broadfoot.  Cope  is  full  of  warlike  ideas,  but  I believe  it  is  a 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


164 

false  alarm.  Certainly  the  Governor-General  knew  nothing  of 
the  matter,  for  some  of  his  own  aides-de-camp  were  here  amus- 
ing themselves  at  the  races.  ...  I have  hardly  a moment 
to  myself,  for  my  assistants  are  all  gone,  and  my  joint  magistrate, 
poor  fellow,  who  only  married  a few  months  since,  is  at  the 
point  of  death.  I will  send  you  Alison.  You  will  find  him  a 
pleasant  writer,  but  very  one-sided  ; and  though  always  speak- 
ing ex  cathedra,  as  it  were,  not  always  as  right  as  he  thinks.’  It 
is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  interest  with  which  John  Law- 
rence, with  his  fondness  for  military  history,  when  looking  for- 
ward to  the  arrival  of  Sir  Henry  Hardinge,  would  have  turned 
to  the  account  given  by  Alison — whom  he  so  well  characterises 
— of  the  field  of  Albuera,  and  would  have  found  there  the  young 
Lieutenant-Colonel,  who  had  now  risen  to  be  Governor-Gen- 
eral, justly  described  as  the  ‘ young  soldier  with  the  eye  of  a 
general  and  the  soul  of  a hero.’ 

One  or  two  comments  are  naturally  suggested  by  the  letters 
I have  quoted.  First,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  im- 
pressions formed  as  to  the  want  of  ability  of  the  Governor- 
General  were  first  impressions  only,  dashed  olf  hurriedly,  accord- 
ing to  John  Lawrence’s  manner,  and  that  they  were  afterwards 
considerably  modified.  Indeed,  his  subsequent  estimate  of  the 
Governor-General  came  nearer  to  the  very  high  one  formed, 
from  the  most  intimate  knowledge,  by  his  brother  Henry,  and 
published  since  his  death  in  his  collected  essays. 

Secondly,  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  was  fully  conscious  of  his 
own  ignorance  ‘of  civil  matters,’  and,  being  conscious  of  it, 
wisely  forebore  to  meddle  with  them.  Before  leaving  England 
he  had  sought  the  advice,  as  any  wise  Governor-General  would 
do — and  it  would  be  well  if  all  succeeding  Governors-General 
had  done  the  like — of  the  man  who,  of  all  men  then  living, 
knew  most  of  India.  The  leading  bit  of  advice  then  given  him 
by  Mountstuart  Elphinstone  was  ‘ not  to  meddle  with  civil  de- 
tails ; ’ and,  acting  on  this  advice  when  he  landed  in  Calcutta, 
he  sent  for  the  Government  Secretaries,  bade  them  give  him 
the  best  advice  in  writing,  and  warned  them  that  if  they  tried 
to  avail  themselves  of  his  ignorance  in  such  matters,  it  would 
be  the  worse  for  them  sooner  or  later.1 

Thirdly,  ‘ Everything  seems  pacific  ; I do  not  think  there  will 
be  a war.’  This  reads  oddly  enough,  when  we  remember  that 


1 Marshrnan's  History  of  India , vol.  iii.  p.  272. 


1842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


165 


it  was  on  the  very  day  (November  17)  on  which  it  was  written 
that  the  Durbar  at  Lahore  determined  to  invade  British  India  ; 
that  it  was  nothing  but  the  scruples  of  the  astrologers,  who  said 
that  the  stars  were  not  favourable,  which  delayed  operations 
for  a single  day  ; that  on  the  nth  of  the  following  month  the 
Sikh  army  began  to  cross  the  Sutlej,  and  that  by  the  15th  the 
whole  strength  of  the  famous  Khalsa  commonwealth — 60,000 
soldiers,  40,000  camp-followers,  and  150  heavy  guns — were  safely 
landed  in  British  territory.  We  may  well  ask,  How  could  John 
Lawrence  himself,  how  could  the  Governor-General,  how  could 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  the  most  experienced  officers  on 
the  frontier — Littler,  Broadfoot,  Wheeler,  and  others — all  agree 
that  no  immediate  danger  was  to  be  apprehended  ? They 
thought,  indeed,  that  bands  of  Akalis — fanatics,  akin  to  the 
Muslim  Ghazis — might  rush  on  their  deaths  by  haphazard  in- 
cursions. But  not  one  of  them  feared  the  deliberate  and  im- 
mediate invasion  of  an  army.  The  fact  is,  that  the  Sikh  Durbar 
had  given  secret  orders  for  the  invasion,  not  so  much  with  any 
hope  of  conquering  British  India,  as  of  securing  their  own 
safety.  They  had  reason  to  fear  that  their  tumultuary  army, 
the  Praetorian  Guard  of  Lahore,  would  turn  and  rend  them. 
Would  it  not  be  well  to  give  it  vent  elsewhere  ? If  the  Sikh 
army  were  destroyed  in  the  invasion  of  India,  the  Sirdars  might 
still  hope  for  consideration  from  the  British.  If  it  were  suc- 
cessful, they  would  step  quietly  in  for  a share  of  the  spoil. 
Such  reckless  and  cruel  policy  it  would  have  been  difficult  for 
anyone  outside  the  Durbar  itself  to  have  predicted.  * No  one 
can  tell,’  as  John  Lawrence  pertinently  remarks  in  one  of  his 
letters,  ‘what  fools  will  do.’  But  it  is  material  also  to  observe 
in  defence  of  the  British  authorities,  that  they  had  made  pre- 
parations even  for  what  they  did  not  expect ; and  hardly  had 
the  Sikhs  entered  British  territory,  when  an  army,  adequately 
equipped  for  anything  that  seemed  to  be  within  the  range  of 
possibility,  advanced  to  meet  them. 

Declining  the  conflict  gallantly  offered  them  by  Sir  John 
Littler  at  Ferozepore,  the  Sikhs,  who  outnumbered  him  as  six 
to  one,  pushed  on  in  two  divisions — one  to  Moodki  and  the 
other  to  Ferozeshah — and  on  December  18  and  21  followed  two 
pitched  battles  against  foes  such  as,  happily,  we  had  never  had 
to  face  before  in  India.  The  interest  attaching  to  the  conflict 
resembles  that  which  belongs  to  the  war  between  Rome 
and  Pyrrhus,  when,  for  the  first  time,  the  Roman  legion  met 


1 66  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1842-46 

the  Macedonian  phalanx,  and  a national  militia  found  them- 
selves pitted  against  a highly  trained  and  veteran  army  of  mer- 
cenaries. In  the  Sutlej  campaign  now  opening,  the  Sikh, 
trained  by  French  and  Italian  officers,  and  inspired  by  religious 
as  well  as  by  national  enthusiasm,  crossed  swords  for  the  first 
time  with  the  Bengal  Sepoy,  who  eat  the  Company’s  salt,  and 
fought  for  us  simply  because  he  did  so.  And  if  our  army  had 
consisted  of  Sepoys  only,  the  result  would  certainly  not  have 
been  in  favour  of  the  Sepoys.  It  needed  all  the  reckless  valour 
of  the  grand  old  Commander-in-Chief,  Sir  Hugh  Gough;  all 
the  chivalrous  devotion  of  the  Governor-General,  who,  like 
Scipio  Africanus  of  old,  cheerfully  waived  his  pre-eminence 
and  consented  to  take  the  second  place,  to  restore  the  waning  for- 
tunes of  the  day.  It  needed  all  that  the  imbecility,  the  coward- 
ice, and  even  the  treachery  of  the  Sikh  commanders,  Lai  and 
Tej  Sing  could  do,  to  compel  their  dare-devil  soldiers  to  know 
when  they  were  beaten,  and  to  bend  before  the  storm. 

But  the  battle  of  Moodki  was  only  the  prelude  to  a greater. 
Three  days  later  the  real  struggle  took  place  at  Ferozeshah. 
The  Sikh  army,  33,000  strong,  had  entrenched  itself  in  a for- 
midable position,  defended  by  a hundred  heavy  guns.  It  was 
not  till  nearly  four  in  the  afternoon  of  the  shortest  day  in  the 
year  that  Sir  Hugh  Gough,  with  characteristic  recklessness, 
gave  the  order  to  storm  their  entrenchments.  Again  and  again 
our  battalions  charged  right  up  to  the  muzzles  of  the  enemy's 
guns  ; and  again  and  again  they  were  driven  back  with  heavy 
loss  by  the  Sikh  infantry,  who  stood  unmoved  to  meet  them. 
It  was  an  experience  new  for  us  in  Indian  warfare,  and  drove 
us,  for  the  first  time,  to  respect  our  foes.  As  night  closed,  our 
troops  found  themselves  half  outside  and  half  within  the  ene- 
my’s position,  unable  either  to  advance  or  retreat.  Regiments 
were  mixed  up  with  regiments,  and  officers  with  men,  in  the 
wildest  confusion.  The  enemy’s  camp  was  on  fire  in  several 
places,  and  was  enlivened  by  frequent  explosions ; but  their 
heavy  guns  still  kept  playing  on  our  men  as  they  lay  exhausted 
on  the  frozen  ground  not  three  hundred  yards  off.  What  the 
Governor-General  did  during  this  ‘ night  of  terrors,’ as  it  was 
justly  called,  throwing  himself  down  to  rest,  now  by  the  side  of 
one  set  of  disheartened  men,  now  of  another,  cheering  them  up 
for  the  morrow’s  work,  and,  anon,  leading  them  himself  through 
the  darkness  in  a desperate  charge  upon  ‘ Futteh  Jung,’  the 
monster  gun  which  was  dealing  death  upon  their  ranks,  and 


1842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


1 67 

triumphantly  spiking  it,1  reads  like  the  record  of  some  Homeric 
chieftain,  or  of  an  Alexander,  a Hannibal  or  a Caesar  come  to 
life  again.  Well  might  the  veteran  of  the  Peninsular  War  say 
that  he  had  ‘ never  known  a night  so  extraordinary  as  this  ; ’ 
and  well  too,  when  the  morning  dawned,  might  he  exclaim,  in 
the  words  of  Pyrrhus,  whose  romantic  conflict  with  Rome  this 
seemed  likely  now  to  resemble  in  more  ways  than  one,  ‘ An- 
other such  victory  and  we  are  undone  ! ’ 

Happily  for  our  Indian  Empire,  the  treachery  of  Lai  Sing  on 
the  following  day  was  still  more  pronounced,  and  the  victory 
which  crowned  our  efforts  was  much  more  decisive.  The  ene- 
my’s camp  was  taken  ; their  army  was  put  to  flight ; a new 
army  which  came  up  under  Tej  Sing  from  Ferozepore  and  had 
not  yet  drawn  a sword,  hesitated,  for  some  inscrutable  reason, 
to  attack  our  worn-out  troops,  who  had  not  tasted  food  for 
thirty-six  hours  and  had  fired  away  almost  their  last  round  of 
ammunition  ; and  by  the  evening  the  whole  Sikh  force  was  in 
full  retreat. 

Never,  probably,  except  at  the  very  crisis  of  the  Mutiny,  was 
India  in  greater  danger  than  during  these  two  days  and  this 
night  of  terror.  It  was  a Cadmean  victory  that  we  had  won  ; 
and  a Cadmean  victory  it  might  have  remained,  had  not  Sir 
Henry  Hardinge,  who  had  lost  a seventh  of  his  army,  had  seen 
ten  out  of  his  twelve  aides-de-camp  wounded  or  killed  at  his 
side,  and  was  mourning  the  loss,  among  many  others  equally 
distinguished  in  recent  Indian  history,  of  D’Arcy  Todd  and 
Broadfoot,  bethought  him  of  the  strenuous  and  energetic 
magistrate  with  whom  he  had  so  lately  spent  those  interesting 
days  at  Delhi.  It  was  now,  at  the  very  crisis  of  the  struggle, 
that  the  Governor-General,  unable  to  follow  up  his  victory 
from  the  want  of  ammunition,  of  siege  guns,  and  of  provisions, 
and  unable  to  fall  back  towards  his  base,  because  to  do  so  would 
invite  another  invasion  of  the  still  unbroken  Sikh  army,  wrote 
in  his  own  handwriting,  and  in  hot  haste,  as  its  contents  show, 
a pressing  note  to  the  Collector  and  Magistrate  of  Delhi  to 
come  to  his  aid.  The  opportunity  had  thus  at  length  come  to 
the  man,  and  the  man  was  not  wanting  to  the  opportunity.  He 
had  put  his  own  foot  into  the  stirrup,  and  it  was  not  likely  now 
that  he  would  fail  to  leap  into  the  saddle. 


1 See  the  graphic  description  of  the  battle  in  Cunningham’s  admirable  History  of 
the  Sikhs,  pp.  301-303. 


1 68 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 842-46 


The  neighbourhood  of  Delhi  had  been  already  much  drained 
by  the  preparations  for  the  war,  by  the  marching  and  counter- 
marching of  troops,  and,  it  must  be  added,  by  the  passing  and 
repassing,  even  in  years  of  peace,  of  the  huge  camps  of  the 
Governor-General  or  the  Commander-in-Chief,  as  they  moved 
along  the  great  thoroughfare  towards  the  North-West.  John 
Lawrence  had  not  been  slow,  as  I have  already  shown,  to  point 
out  the  abuses  to  which  the  purveyance  system  was  liable,  and 
now,  curiously  enough,  he  had  to  apply  that  system  himself  on 
the  most  extensive  and  unprecedented  scale.  His  sensitiveness 
to  right  and  wrong  made  him  not  less,  but  infinitely  more,  cap- 
able for  the  task  that  was  imposed  upon  him.  He  managed, 

| partly  by  personal  influence,  partly  by  promises  of  adequate 
pay,  which  he  took  care  should  reach  the  hands  of  the  right 
persons,  to  raise  in  that  thinly  peopled  country,  within  a very 
short  space  of  time,  the  extraordinary  number  of  4,000  carts, 
each  of  which,  as  he  arranged,  was  to  be  driven  by  its  owner  ; 
and  as  a result  of  his  admirable  arrangements  not  one  of  the 
drivers  deserted. 

As  soon  as  the  great  magazine  of  Delhi,  in  which  men  worked 
day  and  night  moulding  bullets  and  cannon-balls  and  turning 
out  every  instrument  of  death,  had  done  its  part,  John  Law- 
rence despatched  the  whole  train  on  its  journey  of  two  hundred 
miles  along  the  great  northern  road,  in  time  to  take  a share — 
the  lion’s  share — in  the  crowning  victory  of  Sobraon.  Indeed, 
without  his  exertions,  Sobraon  would  have  been  impossible,  or, 
at  all  events,  indefinitely  postponed.  The  Sikhs,  encouraged 
by  our  inability  to  follow  up  our  success  at  Fcrozeshah,  and 
putting  it  down  to  cowardice,  had  again  crossed  the  Sutlej  un- 
der Runjore  Sing,  had  inflicted  a severe  reverse  on  Sir  Harry 
Smith  at  Buddowal,  and  had  been  defeated  by  him  in  turn,  but 
certainly  not  disgraced,  on  January  28,  at  Aliwal. 

On  February  9,  the  long  train  of  heavy  guns  dragged  by 
stately  elephants,  of  ammunition,  of  treasure  and  supplies  of 
every  kind,  reached  the  camp  from  Delhi.  The  spirits  of  offi- 
cers and  men  rose  at  the  sight,  and  on  the  following  day  the 
decisive  battle  was  fought.  The  Sikh  troops,  basely  betrayed 
by  their  leaders,  who  had  come — so  it  was  said,  and  not  without 
some  appearance  of  truth — to  a secret  understanding  with  us, 
fought  like  heroes.  One  old  chief,  whose  name  should  be  re- 
corded— Sham  Sing — ‘among  the  faithless  faithful  only  found,’ 
clothed  in  white  garments,  and  devoting  himself  to  death,  like 


1 842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


169 


Decius  of  old,  called  on  those  around  him  to  strike  for  God  and 
the  Guru,  and  dealing  death  everywhere  around  him,  rushed 
manfully  upon  his  own.  The  Sikhs  were  once  more  in  a posi- 
tion of  their  own  choice,  and  once  more  the  impetuous  Com- 
mander in-Chief,  in  defiance  of  the  rules  of  war,  charged  with 
splendid  gallantry  the  guns  of  the  enemy  in  front.  It  was  in 
this  one  respect  the  battle  of  Ferozeshah  over  again.  But, 
taught  by  experience,  Sir  Hugh  Gough  began  it  at  seven  in  the 
morning  instead  of  at  four  in  thq  afternoon,  and  by  eleven  a.m. 
the  fighting  was  over.  The  Sikhs  had  fought  with  a broad  and 
swollen  river  in  their  rear,  and  many  hundreds  whom  the  can- 
non or  the  sword  would  have  spared,  were  swept  away  in  its 
waters. 

The  battle  of  Sobraon  ended  the  campaign  and  the  war.  The 
Punjab  was  prostrate  at  Lord  Hardinge's  feet,  and  the  unpro- 
voked attack  of  the  Khalsa  on  our  territories  gave  him  an  un- 
questioned right  to  annex  the  whole.  But  there  were  difficul- 
ties in  the  way.  The  advanced  season  ; the  exhaustion  of  our 
army,  which  now  contained  barely  3,000  European  troops  ; the 
probable  expense  of  the  administration  of  so  poor  and  so  vast  a 
country  ; the  salutary  dislike  of  the  Company  and  its  best  ser- 
vants to  all  unnecessary  extension  of  territory  ; the  advantage 
of  having  a brave  and  partially  civilised  race  between  ourselves 
and  the  more  ferocious  and  untameable  tribes  of  Afghanistan, 
wars  with  whom  would  bring  us  neither  gain  nor  glory  ; — all 
these  were  arguments  against  annexation,  and  Sir  Henry  Har- 
dinge,  with  that  prudence  and  moderation  which  were  habitual 
to  him,  determined  to  be  content  with  a part  when  he  might 
have  clutched  at  the  whole,  and  to  give  the  Sikhs  another 
chance — a bond  fide  chance — of  maintaining  their  independence. 
On  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  had  formally  proclaimed  the  an- 
nexation of  the  protected  Sikh  states  on  our  side  of  the  Sutlej, 
and  he  now  determined  to  cripple  the  power  of  the  Khalsa  for 
further  aggression  by  confiscating  the  Jullundur  Doab — the  ex- 
tensive district,  that  is,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Sutlej,  between 
it  and  the  Beas — together  with  the  adjacent  hill  tracts  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Beas,  Kangra,  Nurpore,  and  Nadoun,  right  up 
to  the  borders  of  Thibet.  The  expenses  of  the  war  were,  ac- 
cording to  invariable  custom,  to  fall  also  upon  the  vanquished. 
But  these  the  Durbar,  alike  profligate  and  insolvent,  professed 
its  inability  to  pay,  and  in  lieu  thereof,  the  Governor-General 
arranged  to  take  over  the  highlands  of  Jummoo  and  that  earthly 


170  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1842-46 

paradise,  the  valley  of  Kashmere.  But  while  the  Punjab  was 
independent  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  keep  a satisfactory  hold 
of  Jummoo.  And  by  a very  questionable  stroke  of  policy, 
which  had  been  arranged  beforehand,  and  which  has  brought 
woes  innumerable  on  the  unhappy  Kashmiris  ever  since,  we 
handed  it  over  to  the  Dogra  Rajpoot  Golab  Sing,  who  paid 
us  down  at  once  in  the  hard  cash  which  he  had  stolen  from  the 
Lahore  Durbar.  He  was  an  unscrupulous  villain,  but  an  able 
ruler,  amenable  to  our  influence,  and  would  now  be  bound 
down  by  the  only  obligation  he  would  be  likely  to  recognise — 
his  own  self-interest — to  aid  us  in  checking  any  further  ebulli- 
tion of  Khalsa  fury. 

But  who  was  to  rule  the  country  which  we  had  annexed 
and  intended  to  keep  within  our  grip — the  Jullundur  Doab  ? 
Who  but  the  sturdy  collector  who  had  made  his  name  to  be 
a watchword  for  ability,  order,  economy,  indefatigable  work 
throughout  the  Delhi  district,  and  who,  it  might  be  confidently 
hoped,  would  be  able  to  manage  Rajpoots,  Gudis,  and  Kash- 
miris in  the  highlands,  as  he  had  been  already  able  to  manage 
Jats,  Ranghurs,  and  Goojurs  below?  With  two  weak  corps 
of  native  infantry  and  one  battery  of  native  artillery,  he  had 
preserved  perfect  order  during  these  troublous  times  in  the 
imperial  city,  while  war  was  raging,  and  raging  not  always  to 
our  credit  or  our  advantage,  within  our  own  territories,  not  two 
hundred  miles  away.  He  had  ridden  about  the  city  during 
these  three  months  of  peril,  amidst  its  turbulent  populace,  at- 
tended by  his  single  orderly  as  though  in  time  of  profound 
peace.  In  anticipation  of  the  annexation  on  which  he  had  de- 
termined, Sir  Henry  Hardinge  had  written  some  time  before  to 
Thomason,  the  distinguished  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North- 
West  Provinces,  asking  him  to  send  up  John  Lawrence  for  a 
high  executive  appointment  in  the  Cis-Sutlej  states  which  had 
been  already  annexed.  Thomason,  who  was  primarily  respon- 
sible for  the  safety  of  his  own  provinces,  thought  that  John 
could  not  be  spared  from  Delhi  at  such  a crisis,  and  sent  up  in- 
stead another  officer  whom  he  deemed  to  be  ‘well  qualified’  for 
the  post.  But  the  well-qualified  officer  was  sent  back  without 
ceremony  to  the  place  whence  he  came,  and  the  peremptory 
message,  ‘Send  me  up  John  Lawrence,'  showed  that  the  Gov- 
ernor-General was  not  to  be  trifled  with  ; that  he  had  made  up 
his  mind  ; and  that  John  Lawrence,  and  no  one  else,  was,  as 
soon  as  the  war  was  over,  to  be  the  ruler  of  the  Jullundur 


1842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


171 


Doab.'  And  accordingly,  on  March  1,  1846,  he  was  ordered  to 
repair  to  Umritsul,  the  religious  capital  of  the  Sikhs,  there  to 
receive  the  Governor-General’s  instructions  for  the  onerous  and 
honourable  post  for  which  his  merits,  and  his  merits  alone,  had 
recommended  him. 

I will  end  this  chapter  by  giving  the  drift  of  a few  personal 
reminiscences  contributed  by  Colonel  Balcarres  Ramsay,  who 
had  made  John  Lawrence's  acquaintance  some  years  before  in 
Bonn,  and  who  happened  to  come  across  him  again  at  this  turn- 
ing-point in  his  career.  They  give  a lively  picture  of  some  of 
the  principal  personages  connected  with  the  Sutlej  campaign. 

On  arriving  at  Delhi,  on  my  way  from  Bombay  to  join  the  headquar- 
ters camp  during  the  first  Sikh  war,  I found  that  John  Lawrence,  my  old 
Bonn  friend,  was  Collector  there.  I well  remember  the  meeting.  He 
was  standing  on  the  stairs  outside  his  house  talking  to  Hindu  Rao,  a 
great  hanger-on  of  the  English  at  that  time,  and  a man  whose  house  af- 
terwards became  well  known  as  one  of  the  most  critical  positions  on  the 
ridge  before  Delhi.  John  was  pulling  up  his  shirt-sleeves  and  feeling  his 
muscles,  a very  favourite  attitude  of  his.  He  seemed  delighted  to  see 
me,  and  abruptly  dismissed  his  other  guest  with,  ‘Now  you  gao  Mr. 
Rao,’  who  obsequiously  salaamed  and  disappeared  ; and  after  a chat  on 
old  times,  he  told  me  that  he  had  just  been  summoned  by  Lord  Har- 
dinge  to  join  his  camp  on  important  business,  and  that  if  I would  wait 
two  days  we  would  go  up  together. 

Accordingly  we  started  in  company,  travelling  by  dawk  palanquin. 
During  the  night  he  was  seized  with  a most  violent  attack  of  cholera.  So 
ill  was  he  that  I feared  he  would  have  died  on  the  road.  But  fortunately 
we  came  upon  the  tents  of  a civilian,  William  Ford,  who  was  out  in  the 
district,  and  there  we  were  able  to  apply  energetic  remedies  which  saved 
his  life.  So  powerful  was  his  constitution,  that  in  a very  few  hours  we 
were  on  our  journey  again.  Years  afterwards  I met  him  in  the  streets  of 
London,  just  after  he  had  been  appointed  Governor-General.  He  said  to 
me,  ‘ If  it  had  not  been  for  you,  I should  not  now  be  Governor-General 
of  India,’  alluding  to  that  night. 

We  parted  at  Loodiana,  he  making  the  best  of  his  way  to  headquar- 


1 1 owe  this  incident  in  its  outlines  to  an  interesting  and  suggestive  pamphlet  on 
Lord  Lawrence  by  John  Thornton,  who,  at  the  time  referred  to,  was  Secretary  to 
the  Government  of  the  North-West  Provinces.  He  says  of  the  officer  first  sent  up 
by  Thomason  to  Lord  Hardinge,  ' Though  a man  of  much  literary  and  intellectual 
ability,  he  had  never  shown  the  energy  of  mind  and  body  which  the  introduction  of 
our  system  of  government  into  the  new  province  would  have  required.  Far  less 
could  he  have  carved  out  for  himself  such  a destiny  as  Lawrence  afterwards 
achieved.  His  nomination  was,  in  fact,  an  error  in  judgment  which  was  very  rare 
with  that  just  and  estimable  man,  and  that  unrivalled  administrator,  James  Thoma- 
son. ' 


172 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1842-46 


ters,  while  I,  having  no  official  status,  was  detained  for  a time.  I was, 
however,  destined  soon  to  come  across  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  and  incur 
his  displeasure.  I had  an  order  to  impress  horses  between  Loodiana 
and  Ferozepore,  belonging  to  the  Puttiala  Horse.  At  one  place  I took 
what  I thought  to  be  the  best  animal  of  the  lot,  but,  unfortunately,  it 
belonged  to  a Sikh  from  the  Manjha,  who,  after  the  treaty,  had  come 
down  to  see  a relative  in  the  Puttiala  Horse.  He  fired  at  me  as  I was 
mounting,  and  I had  a narrow  escape.  I arrived  at  the  camp  at  Lahore 
just  as  the  Governor-General  and  his  cortbge  were  about  to  meet  the 
young  Maharaja,  and  receive  his  submission.  There  was  a grand  Dur- 
bar, and  when  the  Koh-i-noor  was  handed  round  for  our  inspection,  W. 
Edwards,  the  Under-Secretary  to  Government  in  the  Foreign  Depart- 
ment, was  put  in  charge  of  it.  He  was  evidently  extremely  nervous, 
and  took  it  round  himself  from  one  staff  officer  to  another.  Just  as  he 
had  placed  it  in  my  hands,  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  sent  for  him.  I nat- 
urally passed  it  on  to  the  next  officer,  and  when  Edwards  hurried  back  and 
demanded  the  precious  jewel,  I never  shall  forget  the  agony  depicted  in 
his  face  as  he  rushed  down  the  ranks  of  staff  officers  frantically  demand- 
ing it. 

That  night  I dined  at  the  Governor-General’s  table,  where  there  was  a 
large  and  illustrious  party  assembled,  among  them  Sir  Charles  Napier, 
Lord  Elphinstone,  Lord  Gough,  Charles  West,  afterwards  Earl  de  la 
Warr,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  Herbert  Edwardes,  and,  I think,  John  Law- 
rence. Dazzled  by  the  lights,  and  desperately  fatigued  by  my  long 
journey  from  Bombay,  I fell  asleep  almost  immediately  after  sitting 
down  to  dinner.  Just  as  I was  dozing  off,  I heard  Sir  Henry  Hardinge 
say,  ‘ Let  him  sleep,  poor  boy,  he  is  very  tired.’  I was  awakened  at  the 
close  of  dinner  by  a loud  burst  of  laughter,  occasioned  by  the  following 
incident.  Herbert  Edwardes,  who  was  one  of  the  party,  had  been 
writing  some  powerful  articles  in  the  press,  under  the  name  of  ‘ Brah- 
miny  Bull.’  Towards  the  close  of  dinner,  Arthur  Hardinge — ‘ dear 
little  Arthur,’  his  father’s  idol — asked  him  to  take  a glass  of  wine  with 
him.  Every  eye  was  turned  upon  Edwardes,  Sir  Charles  Napier’s  in 
particular,  as  it  was  said  that  an  appointment  which  had  been  recently 
conferred  on  the  young  officer  was  given  with  a view  to  stop  his  too  facile 
pen.  Such  was  the  gossip  in  camp  ; so  the  amusement  of  all  present  may 
be  imagined  when  ‘ dear  little  Arthur,’  in  his  clear  boyish  accents,  shouted 
from  the  other  end  of  the  table,  ‘ I suppose  you  will  not  write  any  more 
“ Brahminy  Bull”  articles  now,  will  you,  Mr.  Edwardes?’  No  one 
laughed  more  heartily  than  Lord  Hardinge,  who  shook  his  fist  playfully 
at  his  son. 

After  dinner  I found  myself  confronted  by  a tall,  grave-looking  man, 
who  said,  ‘ You  must  not  be  so  zubberdust  [high-handed]  with  the  na- 
tives.’ I asked  him  to  what  he  alluded.  He  replied,  ‘ You  seized  a 
Sikh’s  horse  the  other  day.’  I said  I had  an  order  to  use  the  horses  on 
the  road.  ‘Yes,’  he  said,  ‘but  not  a Sikh’s.’  ‘ Well,  but,’  I remon- 
strated, ‘ he  nearly  shot  me.’  ‘ Of  course,’  replied  Sir  Henry  Lawrence 


1842-46 


FIRST  SIKH  WAR. 


173 


— for  he  it  was — ‘ and  he  was  perfectly  justified  in  so  doing.  The  treaty 
had  just  been  signed,  and  he  was  proceeding  to  see  his  friends,  when  his 
property  was  violently  taken  from  him  by  you.’  I could  only  bow  in  as- 
sent, having  nothing  to  urge  in  my  defence.  Poor  Sir  Charles  Napier 
was  much  dejected  at  being  too  late  for  all  the  hard  fighting.  He  asked 
me  to  accompany  him  back  to  Scinde  on  my  return  to  the  Governor  of 
Bombay’s  staff.  The  night  before  he  went,  I was  taken  ill.  Sir  Charles 
rode  the  first  day  about  thirty-five  miles,  and  the  second  an  equally  long 
distance  ; so  there  was  no  chance  of  my  overtaking  him.  This,  however, 
turned  out  fortunately  forme,  as  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  placed  me  on  his 
personal  staff. 

I saw  a good  deal  of  John  Lawrence  at  that  time.  He  had  always  had 
a great  deal  of  fun  about  him,  and  it  was  irrepressible  even  now.  One 
day  I happened  to  be  in  the  same  howdah  with  him  and  three  or  four 
others,  on  the  back  of  an  elephant  going  through  the  streets  of  Lahore, 
while  our  army  was  encamped  before  it.  Seeing  an  officer  approaching 
in  solitary  state  on  another  elephant,  he  drove  his  alongside  of  it  and 
said  to  me,  ‘ Youngster,  we  are  rather  crowded  here,  you  are  one  too 
many  for  us,  there’s  a very  nice  old  gentleman  who  will  welcome  you 
with  open  arms  ; now,  jump  in  quick.’  I confess  I had  misgivings  as  to 
the  ‘ nice  old  gentleman,’  but  to  save  myself  from  falling  between  the 
two  elephants,  I had  to  clasp  him  round  the  neck,  whereupon  the  ‘ nice 

old  gentleman  ’ roared  at  me,  * What do  you  mean  by  boarding  me 

in  this  fashion?’  I said,  ‘Sir,  it  is  not  my  fault;  but  John  Lawrence 
said  you  were  very  amiable,  and  that  you  would  welcome  me  with  open 
arms.’  ‘Ah!’  he  replied,  ‘ I’ll  pay  off  Master  John  for  this.’  The  old 
gentleman  in  question  was  Colonel  Stuart,  the  Military  Secretary  to  the 
Government  of  India,  who,  though  a most  estimable  person,  could  hardly 
be  called  ‘ amiable.’ 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  1846. 

The  point  which  we  have  now  reached  in  the  life  of  John  J.aw- 
rence  is  that  at  which  he  emerges  from  comparatively  private  into 
public  life  ; from  posts  which,  however  important,  were  yet  only 
subordinate,  to  one  in  which  he  stands  on  his  own  foundation  ; 
from  the  care  of  populations  which  had  long  been  subject  to 
our  rule,  to  that  of  a race  who  had  never  felt  its  stress  and  had 
just  joined  in  the  great,  and,  at  one  time  almost  successful, 
effort,  to  oust  us  from  our  hold  of  North-Western  India.  It 
was  a great  leap,  which  carried  him,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty- 
four  years,  clear  over  the  heads  of  all  his  contemporaries  and  of 
many  also  of  his  seniors,  and  roused  feelings  of  natural  jealousy 
in  some  of  those  whom  he  had  distanced,  which  have  hardly 
yet  spent  their  force. 

Invidia  accrevit,  privato  quae  minor  esset. 

The  thoughts  of  John  Lawrence,  his  letters  and  his  acts,  no 
longer  now  affect  his  friends  or  relatives  alone,  or  that  portion 
of  the  natives  over  whom  he  rules.  They  take  a wider  sweep. 
They  have  a bearing  on  the  government  of  India  and  on  the 
momentous  events  which  were  coming  on.  That  John  Law- 
rence fully  appreciated  the  significance  of  the  change,  and  be- 
gan now  to  look  upon  himself  as  one  who  might  ‘ have  a future,’ 
and  need  not  necessarily  ‘be  content  to  wait  for  it,’  is  indicated 
by  his  beginning,  like  other  rising  officials,  to  preserve  in  huge 
folio  volumes  copies  of  those  letters  which,  being  neither 
strictly  official  nor  strictly  private,  form  so  large  a part  of  all 
Indian  correspondence,  and  are  known  in  India  by  the  name  of 
‘demi-official.’  It  was  a practice  which  he  never  afterwards 
dropped,  and  his  biographer,  whose  chief  complaint  has  hither- 
to been  the  meagreness  of  the  written  materials  placed  at  his 
disposal,  is  now  inclined  to  complain  of  the  very  opposite,  of 


175 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES. 

the  embarrassing  exuberance  of  materials,  which  yet  never  tell 
their  own  tale  completely,  and  from  which  he  has  to  winnow, 
as  best  he  can,  such  grains  as  are  of  permanent  historical  in- 
terest, or  throw  light  on  the  character  of  the  man. 

The  Jullundur  period  is  one  of  the  busiest  of  John  Law- 
rence’s life,  and  it  will  be  rvell  to  inquire  first  what  were  the 
geographical  and  historical  conditions  of  the  country  over 
which  he  was  called  upon  to  preside.  The  Jullundur  Doab  lies 
between  the  rivers  Sutlej  and  Beas,  and  is,  for  the  most  part, 
a rich  champaign  country  inhabited  by  Juts,  who  hereabouts, 
as  John  Lawrence  describes  them,  were  ‘ a most  industrious 
painstaking  race,  very  quiet  and  orderly,  who  had  cultivated 
every  mile  of  waste  ground  and  were  apparently  very  glad  to 
submit  to  our  rule.  The  northern  part  of  the  Doab  consists  of 
ranges  of  low  hills  intersected  by  narrow  valleys,  and  is  inhab- 
ited by  Rajpoot  tribes,  who,  at  that  time,  were  split  up  into 
many  sections  and  were  living  under  their  own  chiefs.  Besides 
the  Doab  proper,  there  is  a vast  mountain  tract  covering  an 
area  of  some  13,000  square  miles,  and  containing  a population 
of  750,000  souls,  which  goes  stretching  away  beneath  the  snowy 
range  with  its  peaks  of  16,000  feet  in  height,  right  up  to  the 
borders  of  Ladak  in  Chinese  Tartar}'.  This  alpine  country 
contains  every  variety  of  scenery,  of  climate,  of  soil,  and  of 
race,  from  the  lordly  Rajpoot  down  to  the  lowly  Goojur  and 
Jolaha,  and  is  the  birthplace  of  three  of  the  great  Punjab  rivers 
— the  Beas,  the  Ravi,  and  the  Chenab.  The  town  which  has 
given  to  this  region  its  chief  historical  celebrity,  and  which  I 
shall  presently  have  to  describe  in  detail,  is  the  famous  fortress 
of  Kangra.  But  the  whole  country  bristled  with  little  hill  for- 
tresses, which  were  strong  by  nature  if  not  by  art,  and  were  gen- 
erally held  by  independent  chiefs  whose  subjects  were  remark- 
able for  their  courage  and  their  high  sense  of  honour.  Would 
these  hundred  little  fortresses  yield  to  the  newly  appointed 
Commissioner  backed  by  an  armed  force,  in  the  peaceful  man- 
ner in  which  the  walled  village  had  yielded  some  years  before 
to  the  importunity  of  the  solitary  Collector  of  Delhi  ? 

John  Lawrence  lost  no  time  in  buckling  down  to  his  work. 
It  was  on  March  1,  1846,  that  he  received  his  appointment  from 
the  Governor-General  at  Umritsur,  and  by  the  30th  of  the  same 
month  the  Governor  was  paying  him  a return  visit  at  Jullun- 
dur, where  he  had  already  got  well  on  with  the  most  important 
and  the  most  difficult  task  of  the  ruler  of  a newly  annexed 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


176 

province,  the  settlement — of  course,  at  present,  only  a sum- 
mary settlement — of  its  revenue.  He  had  hoped  to  complete 
the  work  of  that  particular  portion  of  his  province  in  the 
first  week  of  April ; but  the  incursion  of  a Sikh  chief  from 
the  other  side  of  the  Beas,  and  the  disturbed  state  of  the 
country  bordering  on  the  hills,  warned  him  to  drop  the  pen,  to 
take  up  the  sword,  and  to  move  northwards  to  Hoshiarpore. 
During  this  first  month  he  had  been  working  alone  in  his  new 
dominions.  ‘I  have  not  yet  been  joined,’  he  says,  ‘by  one  of 
my  assistants.  I work  from  ten  to  twelve  hours  every  day,  and 
yet  I daily  leave  much  undone.’  By  April  10,  two  out  of  the 
four  assistants  who  had  been  promised  him  had  arrived,  the  one 
somewhat  impracticable  and  desultory,  a thorn  in  his  side  the 
whole  time  that  he  remained  with  him  ; the  other  a man  of 
great  ability  and  energy,  who,  though  he  was  uninitiated  as  yet 
into  the  mysteries  of  revenue,  and  therefore  was  unable  to  help 
in  that  department,  was  destined  under  John  Lawrence’s  tuition 
to  become  a high  authority  on  the  subject.  The  friendship 
formed  with  Robert  Cust  was  a lifelong  one,  and  the  circum- 
stances attending  his  first  interview  with  his  chief  have,  after 
the  lapse  of  thirty  years,  been  thus  recalled  by  him  : — 

It  seems  but  yesterday  that  I first  stood  before  John  Lawrence,  in 
April,  1846,  at  the  town  of  Hoshiarpore,  the  capital  of  a district  in  the 
Jullundur  Doab,  which  was  my  first  charge.  I found  him  discussing  with 
the  Postmaster-General  the  new  lines  of  postal  delivery,  and  settling 
with  the  officer  commanding  the  troops  the  limits  of  his  cantonments. 
Harry  Lumsdcn,  then  a young  subaltern,  was  copying  letters.  Seated 
round  the  small  knot  of  Europeans  were  scores  of  Sikh  and  Mohamme- 
dan landholders,  arranging  with  their  new  lord  the  terms  of  their  cash 
assessment.  John  Lawrence  was  full  of  energy — his  coat  off,  his  sleeves 
turned  up  above  his  elbows — and  was  impressing  upon  his  subjects  his 
principles  of  a just  state  demand,  and  their  first  elementary  ideas  of  natu- 
ral equity ; for,  as  each  man  touched  the  pen,  the  unlettered  token  of 
agreement  to  their  leases,  he  made  them  repeat  aloud  the  new  trilogue  of 
the  English  Government  : ‘ Thou  shalt  not  burn  thy  widow  ; thou  shalt 
not  kill  thy  daughters  ; thou  shalt  not  bury  alive  thy  lepers  ; ’ 1 and  old 
greybeards,  in  the  families  of  some  of  whom  there  was  not  a single 
widow,  or  a female  blood-relative,  went  away  chanting  the  dogmas  of 
the  new  Moses,  which  next  year  were  sternly  enforced.  Here  I learnt 


1 In  Hindustani : — 

■ Bcwa  mat  jaldo  ; 
Beti  mat  mdro  ; 
Kori  mat  dabdo.' 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES. 


1 77 


my  first  idea  of  the  energetic  order  and  the  rapid  execution  which  make 
up  the  sum  total  of  good  administration.  Here  I first  knew  the  man, 
who  was  my  model,  my  friend,  and  my  master,  till,  twenty  years  later, 
I sat  at  his  Council  board  in  Calcutta,  and,  thirty  years  later,  consulted 
him  on  details  of  the  affairs  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  and  joined 
his  committee  in  opposition  to  what  he  believed  to  be  the  mistaken  pol- 
icy of  a second  Afghan  war. 

Hercules  Scott,  another  of  John  Lawrence’s  early  assistants, 
also  gives  a few  first  impressions  of  this  period  which  should  be 
preserved. 

I had  been  only  a few  months  in  harness  in  India,  and  had  acquired 
therefore  only  the  most  elementary  knowledge  of  my  duties,  when  I 
found  myself,  in  May,  1846,  transferred  to  the  rule  of  Mr.  John  Lawrence 
in  the  Trans-Sutlej  States.  In  writing  to  report  myself  to  him,  I ex- 
pressed my  desire  that  he  would  place  me  under  a civilian,  not  under  a 
military  man.  He  acknowledged  my  letter  in  a few  curt  lines.  * Your 
aim,’  he  wrote,  ‘ ought  to  be  employment  under  a good  officer,  be  his  coat 
red  or  black.’  With  this  stern  but  characteristic  remark  he  directed  me 
to  proceed  to  Jullundur  as  assistant  to  the  Deputy-Commissioner  there. 
It  was  not  till  the  close  of  that  year  that  he  was  able  to  come  to  Jullundur, 
and  I to  make  his  acquaintance.  I held  him  in  great  awe  at  first,  a feel- 
ing which  was  intensified  by  his  strict  oversight  of  all  the  proceedings  of 
his  subordinates,  and  by  a certain  ruggedness  of  manner  and  exterior, 
under  which,  as  I afterwards  found,  the  warmest  and  kindliest  of  hearts 
lay  concealed.  My  work  must  have  bristled  with  irregularities  and  blun- 
ders, which  were  duly  cauterised,  but  he  made  allowance  for  the  unequal 
combat  which,  as  a young  hand,  I had  endeavoured  to  maintain,  and  re- 
ported very  kindly  of  me  to  Government.  The  illness  of  the  Deputy-Com- 
missioner brought  me  henceforward  into  frequent  contact  with  the  Com- 
missioner. The  awe  with  which  he  had  inspired  me  soon  wore  off,  and  our 
acquaintance  ripened  into  a thorough  confidence  and  attachment.  Press- 
ing as  were  his  own  engagements,  it  was  never  the  wrong  time  to  apply  to 
him  for  advice  or  guidance  in  carrying  out  one’s  duties.  His  grasp,  both 
of  principles  and  details,  in  fiscal,  revenue,  police,  and  judicial  matters, 
was  at  once  comprehensive  and  minute.  Nothing  pleased  him  better 
than  to  open  the  stores  of  his  experience  for  our  benefit.  His  own  appe- 
tite for  work  was  insatiable,  and  he  expected,  and  I think  not  in  vain,  a 
like  devotion  from  us.  A drone  or  a shirk  could  not  tarry  in  his  sight. 
There  were,  as  it  appeared  to  me,  certain  guiding  principles  which  ran 
through  his  whole  texture,  and  were  constantly  impressed  on  us  : duty 
to  Government,  consideration  for  the  natives,  order  and  promptitude  in 
work,  personal  self-sacrifice,  justice  between  man  and  man.  He  illus- 
trated these  principles  in  his  own  life,  and  many  of  his  disciples  in  the 
Punjab  school  learned  to  reflect  in  their  own  persons  these  character- 
istic features  of  their  head. 

Vol.  I. — 12 


178 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


Before  the  energy  which  John  Lawrence  threw  into  his  work 
difficulties  seemed  to  fly,  and  he  had  not  been  in  the  Doab  more 
than  a month  when,  with  that  manly  frankness  and  simplicity 
which  marks  him  throughout  his  career,  he  told  Frederick 
Currie,  the  Secretary  to  Government  in  the  Foreign  Depart- 
ment, exactly  what  he  had  done,  what  he  had  not  done,  and 
what  he  thought  he  would  one  day  be  able  to  do.  That  which 
in  other  people  might  be  put  down  as  self-assertion  is  in  him  a 
bare  statement  of  fact,  as  far  removed  from  affectation  of  mod- 
esty as  it  is  from  ostentation  or  display. 

As  far  as  I am  concerned  as  supervisor,  I could  easily  manage  double 
the  extent  of  country.  It  is  on  the  efficiency  of  the  executive  that  the 
results  must  depend.  Of  five  officers  nominated  under  me,  three  have 
never  joined,  and  the  other  two  I have  had  with  me  but  four  days.  With 
five  men  present,  I could  manage  this  country  in  first-rate  style,  hill  and 

plain,  even  though  everyone,  with  the  exception  of , is  wholly  new 

to  the  duty.  Mackeson  may  have  a greater  extent  of  territory  (the  Cis- 
Sutlej  States)  than  I have,  but  recollect  that  two-thirds  of  his  is  an  old 
country,  which  is,  or  ought  to  have  been,  long  since  settled.  1 only  ask 
you  to  wait  six  months,  and  then  contrast  the  civil  management  of  the 

two  charges After  what  I have  said,  I think  you  ought  to 

give  me  Harry  Lumsden,  for  he  is  a good  linguist,  and  a steady  fellow.  If 
you  send  young  civilians  they  cannot  be  of  much  use  for  the  first  year  ; 
however,  do  as  you  think  best ; I can  only  make  the  most  of  the  instru- 
ments you  put  into  my  hands. 

The  petition  thus  made  was  duly  complied  with,  and  Harry 
Lumsden,  whose  good  sword  has  done  service  since  then  in 
many  a border  fight,  and  who  was  for  many  years  one  of  the 
most  dashing  of  John  Lawrence’s  ‘ wardens  of  the  marches,’ 
soon  appeared.  With  him  came  also  Lieutenant  Edmund  Lake 
of  the  Bengal  Engineers,  afterwards  one  of  the  most  efficient 
soldier-politicals  in  the  Punjab,  and  who  was  now  entrusted 
with  the  revenue  settlement  of  Nurpore.  ‘1  like  Lake  very 
well,  he  is  a nice  little  fellow,’  John  writes  to  his  brother  Hen- 
ry ; ‘ but  all  your  politicals  look  more  to  politics  than  to  statis- 
tics and  the  internal  economy  of  the  country.’  It  is  pleasant 
to  think  that  four  of  John  Lawrence’s  earliest  assistants  in  the 
Jullundur  Doab — Cust,  Lumsden,  Lake,  and  Hercules  Scott,  in 
spite  of  his  stern  rule  and  his  insatiable  appetite  for  work,  or 
it  may  be,  perhaps,  because  of  them — proved  his  warm  friends 
for  life. 

John  Lawrence  had  hardly  finished  his  work  in  the  plains 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES. 


179 


when  news  reached  him  from  the  hills  that  the  fort  of  Kote- 
Kangra  had  closed  its  gates,  had  repaired  its  defences,  and  that 
its  determined  leader,  with  a garrison  <?f  three  hundred  veteran 
Sikhs,  had  fired  three  cannon-shots  upon  the  small  force  of 
Lieutenant  Joseph  Davy  Cunningham,  the  accomplished  and 
earnest  historian  of  the  Sikhs,  and  had  declared  that  he  would 
not  surrender  its  keys  unless  the  ‘ Lion  of  the  Punjab,’  Runjeet 
Sing  himself,  returned  from  the  dead  and  demanded  them  of 
him. 

The  hill  fortress  which  breathed  this  proud  defiance  could 
trace  back  its  history,  and  that  too  no  ignoble  one,  for  two 
thousand  years.  ‘ At  a time  when  our  ancestors  were  unre- 
claimed savages,  and  the  Empire  of  Rome  was  yet  in  its  in- 
fancy, there  was  a Kutoch  monarchy,  as  it  was  called,  with  an 
organised  government  at  Kangra,’1  and  its  rulers  had  ever  since 
that  time  more  or  less  swayed  the  destinies  of  the  surrounding 
hill  states.  The  fort  stands  on  a precipitous  and  isolated  rock 
four  hundred  feet  high,  and  is  connected  with  the  main  range 
of  hills  only  by  a narrow  neck  of  land,  twenty  yards  wide. 
This  neck  is  defended  by  strong  walls  built  up  against  the  solid 
rock,  which  has  been  scarped  for  the  purpose,  and  a winding 
passage  through  seven  different  gateways  gives  access  to  the 
fortress.  Henry  Lawrence,  speaking  only  from  what  he  had 
heard,  described  it  to  his  friend  Sir  John  Kaye  as  ‘ a Gibraltar, 
five  miles  round,  with  one  accessible  point,  which  is  defended 
by  thirteen  different  gates,  one  within  the  other.’  Such  a 
fortress,  with  the  perennial  stream  that  brawls  at  its  base,  could 
be  taken  by  a native  power  only  through  the  slow  process  of 
starvation,  or  by  treachery  ; and  the  natives  of  these  hill  states, 
unlike  the  Sikh  sirdars  of  Lahore,  could  generally  be  trusted  to 
fight  to  the  bitter  end. 

Fifty  years  before  William  the  Conqueror  had  landed  in 
England,  Mahmud  of  Ghuzni,  spurred  on  by  the  reputed  wealth 
of  Kangra,  and  by  his  fierce  iconoclastic  zeal,  had  sacked  its 
sacred  temple  of  Jowala  Mukhi.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  in 
the  time  of  our  Elizabeth,  the  great  Emperor  Akbar  had  him- 
self led  an  expedition  thither,  and,  as  his  famous  chancellor 
Todar  Mull  expressed  it,  ‘had  cutoff  the  meat  and  left  the 
bones,’  meaning  that  he  had  taken  all  the  valleys,  of  which  the 


1 See  the  Kangra  Report,  drawn  up  by  George  Barnes,  for  an  admirable  descrip- 
tion, to  which  I am  much  indebted,  of  the  fort,  the  people,  and  their  history. 


i8o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


Kangra  is  the  richest  and  most  beautiful,  and  had  left  only  the 
bare  hills.  Early  in  the  present  century,  Sansa  Chand,  the 
hereditary  king  of  the  Kutoch  Rajpoot,  raised  the  standard  of 
rebellion  against  the  Mogul  Emperor,  recovered  the  Kangra 
fortress,  the  home  of  his  ancestors,  and  from  it  began  to  con- 
quer the  surrounding  hill  states.  The  threatened  mountaineers 
called  in  the  Ghoorkas  to  their  aid,  while  Sansa  Chand  called 
in  the  Sikhs  to  his  ; and  before  the  virgin  fortress,  which  had 
never  yet  fallen  by  assault,  Sikh  and  Ghoorka  engaged  for  the 
first  time  in  deadly  combat.  The  Sikhs  won,  and  the  wily  Run- 
jeet  Sing  appropriated  to  himself  the  apple  of  discord,  and 
from  it  managed  to  hold  in  check  the  whole  hill  country.  Such 
was  the  history  and  such  the  situation  of  the  fortress  which  now 
refused  to  open  its  gates  to  the  British  Government. 

John  Lawrence  was  alive  to  the  emergency,  and  on  May  1, 
accompanied  by  Harry  Lumsden,  he  started  for  the  scene  of 
action.  On  his  way  thither  he  received  the  submission  of  all 
the  hill  chiefs  and  the  hearty  support  of  a few  of  them,  among 
whom  were  the  Rajas  of  Mundi  and  Nadoun.  He  found  on  his 
arrival  that  the  fort  was  still  holding  out,  though  blockaded  by 
a corps  of  Native  Infantry  which  had  been  sent  up  a month 
before  to  take  peaceable  possession  of  it.  Time  passed  on. 
The  English  military  authorities  at  Jullundur  were  unwilling 
to  expose  in  any  numbers  British  troops,  who  had  hardly  yet 
recovered  from  the  sufferings  of  the  recent  war,  to  the  intoler- 
able heat  of  the  Kangra  valleys  ; nor  did  it  seem  likely  that 
heavy  guns  would,  in  the  absence  of  all  roads,  be  able  to  reach 
the  spot.  Early  in  the  century  the  redoubtable  fortress  had 
held  out  successfully  against  the  Ghoorkas  for  a three  years’ 
siege,  and  if  it  should  prove  now  able  to  resist  the  British  for 
as  many  months  as  it  had  resisted  the  Ghoorkas  years,  John 
Lawrence  feared  that  there  would  be  a renewal  of  the  war  all 
along  the  hills.  So  he  applied  to  Wheeler,  the  General  in  com- 
mand of  the  Division,  for  some  heavy  guns,  and  bade  Harry 
Lumsden  fix  upon  the  best  route  onward  from  the  Beas  where  all 
roads  stopped.  Henry  Lawrence,  who  had  meanwhile  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  difficult  and  almost  impossible  duties  of  Resident 
at  Lahore,  came  hurrying  up  to  the  point  where  things  looked  so 
threatening.  He  brought  with  him  Raja  DenaNath,  the  ablest 
and  most  influential  member  of  the  Sikh  Durbar,  in  the  hope  of 
inducing  the  garrison  of  three  hundred  veteran  Sikhs  to  sur- 
render quietly.  But  Dena  Nath  was  not  Runjeet  Sing,  and 


1 846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  l8l 

unless  Runjeet  Sing  himself  returned  from  the  grave,  so  the 
stout-hearted  officer  in  command  again  declared,  he  would  defend 
his  post  to  the  death.  In  vain  did  Dena  Nath  promise  the  gar- 
rison their  arrears  of  pay,  their  travelling  expenses,  and  a safe- 
conduct  to  their  homes.  They  spurned  all  terms  of  surrender, 
and  the  sequel  shall  be  told  as  nearly  as  possible  in  John  Law- 
rence’s own  words. 

Additional  native  troops,  with  a pair  of  heavy  guns,  had  meantime 
been  slowly  winding  up  to  the  point  on  the  Beas  which  lay  nearest  to 
Kangra.  Here  the  level  country  ended,  and  no  such  thing  as  a siege 
gun  had  ever  yet  been  seen  in  the  Kangra  hills.  There  was  no  road, 
nothing  beyond  a narrow  pathway.  But  Harry  Lumsden  had  explored 
the  proper  route,  and  the  engineers  now  set  to  work  to  construct  a tem- 
porary road  on  which  the  guns  could  travel. 

Within  a week  the  work  was  accomplished,  and  the  guns  conveyed  a 
distance  of  some  forty  miles  into  our  camp,  which  lay  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  on  which  the  fort  was  situated.  In  the  evening  a deputation  from 
the  Sikh  garrison  came  out  of  the  fort  to  hear  our  terms.  The  members, 
three  greybeards,  were  quiet  and  courteous,  but  determined.  For  seve- 
ral hours  they  remained  talking  over  matters  with  Colonel  Lawrence  and 
myself.  At  last,  as  they  rose  to  make  their  salaam,  and  w;ere  on  the  eve 
of  departure,  I suggested  that  they  should  stay  and  see  the  guns  at 
break  of  day  ascend  the  hill.  They  listened  and  agreed,  but  with  a 
gesture  which  denoted  incredulity.  At  four  A.M.  they  were  awakened 
by  vociferous  cheering.  They  started  from  their  rough  beds  and  rushed 
out,  believing  that  it  was  a sally  from  the  garrison.  They  were  soon 
undeceived  ; for  a few  moments  later  there  appeared  a couple  of  large 
elephants  slowly  and  majestically  pulling  an  eighteen-pounder,  tandem 
fashion,  with  a third  pushing  behind.  In  this  manner  gun  after  gun 
wound  its  way  along  the  narrow  pathway,  and,  by  the  help  of  hundreds 
of  sepoys,  safely  rounded  the  sharp  corners  which  seemed  to  make 
further  progress  impossible.  The  Sikh  elders  looked  on  with  amaze- 
ment, but  said  not  a word.  When  the  last  gun  had  reached  the  plateau, 
they  took  their  leave  and  returned  to  the  fort.  In  an  hour  the  white 
flag  was  raised.  The  garrison  defiled  out  man  by  man,  and,  throwing 
down  their  arms,  quietly  took  their  way  to  the  plains.  Thus  passed  by 
what  might  have  developed  into  a very  serious  affair. 

While  these  military  movements  were  going  on  and  this 
bloodless  victory  over  a redoubtable  fortress  was  being  achieved 
— a victory  which,  it  will  be  seen  now,  was  as  bloodless  and 
complete  as  that  of  the  Collector  over  the  Delhi  village — the 
administration  of  the  district  was  not  neglected  for  a single  day. 
The  police  were  distributed  all  over  the  country,  courts  were 


182 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


established  in  suitable  places,  and  the  summary  settlement  of 
the  revenue  prosecuted.  While  Cust  was  finishing  the  work 
which  had  been  begun  by  his  chief  at  Jullundur  and  Hoshiar- 
pore,  and  Lake  was  settling  the  revenue  of  Nurpore,  the  Com- 
missioner himself  managed  to  do  all  the  rest,  Kangra,  Hurri- 
pore,  Nadoun,  Spiti,  and  Kulu.  He  traversed  hundreds  of 
miles  of  country  in  the  process,  and  before  May  1,  the  begin- 
ning, that  is,  of  the  official  year,  exactly  two  months  from  the 
date  of  his  appointment,  and  from  our  first  occupation  of  the 
country,  the  whole  operation  was  completed. 

The  personal  intercourse  which  John  Lawrence  had  had  with 
natives  in  his  earlier  career  now  stood  him  in  good  stead.  The 
reform  which  he  was  most  bent  on  introducing — the  substitution 
of  a land-tax  paid  in  money  for  one  paid  in  kind — was  a rude 
shock  to  native  ideas  ; for,  from  time  immemorial,  their  ancestors 
had  paid  the  state  dues  in  grain.  They  would  fain  still  have 
stood  upon  the  old  ways,  and  they  came  to  John  Lawrence, 
sometimes  in  large  bodies,  sometimes  one  by  one,  asking  to  be 
allowed  to  do  as  they  had  always  done.  The  Commissioner, 
who  was  resolved  to  carry  out  his  project — by  persuasion  if  pos- 
sible, but  anyhow  to  carry  it — explained  to  these  rigid  conserva- 
tives the  advantages  of  the  new  system,  and  pointed  out  the 
abuses  inseparably  connected  with  the  old  one.  The  poverty 
of  the  remonstrants,  if  not  their  will,  consented,  and  when  the 
reform  had  once  been  introduced  and  its  advantages  perceived, 
there  was  no  more  wish  to  return  to  the  old  state  of  things. 
The  middlemen  and  tax-farmers  who  preyed  on  the  agricultural 
class  were  swept  away  for  ever,  and  it  was  calculated  that  a re- 
lief of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent,  had  been  made  on  each 
man’s  payments,  while  the  total  which  found  its  way  into  the 
coffers  of  the  state  was  as  nearly  as  possible  the  same  ! 

I well  remember  how  Lord  Lawrence,  in  a conversation  which 
I had  with  him  shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War,  dwelt  upon  the  extraordinary  difficulty  he  had 
found  in  persuading  the  natives  to  give  up  the  old  system  of 
payment  in  kind  ; how  he  remarked  that  nearly  all  the  evils  to 
which  the  subject  races  in  Turkey  were  exposed  had  their 
counterparts  in  India  under  native  rule,  and  how  he  pointed 
out  that  the  subject  races  of  Turkey  would  be  likely  to  resist 
most  strongly  the  particular  reform  which  lay  at  the  root  of  all 
the  others. 

That  the  reforms  introduced  by  John  Lawrence  w’ere  gen- 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  183 


erally  beneficial  is  evident  from  the  verdict  of  George  Barnes, 
his  successor  in  the  Commissionership,  given  deliberately  some 
seven  years  afterwards  in  his  ‘ Kangra  Report.’ 

The  grain  payments  were  commuted  at  easy  rates  into  money,  and 
the  people,  after  a little  persuasion,  were  brought  to  accede  to  the  in- 
novation. I may  add  that  this  measure,  effected  by  the  Commissioner 
(John  Lawrence),  was  attended  by  the  most  complete  ’success.  The 
settlement  itself  was  the  fairest  and  best  in  the  district,  and  the  people 
are  so  well  satisfied  with  the  change  that  they  would  gladly  pay  a higher 
revenue  than  revert  to  their  old  usage.  Money  assessment  has  left 
them  masters  within  their  own  village  areas.  They  may  cultivate  what- 
ever crops  they  please.  It  has  taught  them  habits  of  self-management 
and  economy,  and  has  converted  them  from  ignorant  serfs  of  the  soil 
into  an  intelligent  and  thrifty  peasantry.  They  appreciate  the  discretion 
with  which  they  are  now  entrusted,  and  are  stimulated  by  the  prospects 
which  industry  holds  out  to  them. 

It  will  follow  from  what  I have  already  said  of  the  history  of 
the  hill  country  and  its  Rajas,  that  it  would  be  of  prime  impor- 
tance to  effect  a just  and  satisfactory  settlement  of  their  claims. 
This  subject  was  at  once  taken  in  hand.  The  circumstances 
of  each  chief  were  carefully  considered.  All  the  fiefs  found  in 
their  possession  were  maintained,  while  they  were  at  the  same 
time  freed  from  the  military  service  and  the  fiscal  exactions 
which  had  been  the  cause  of  so  much  vexation  under  Sikh  rule. 
Any  rights  of  independent  jurisdiction  which  were  found  to  be 
in  existence  at  the  time  of  our  occupation  were  confirmed,  but 
John  Lawrence,  acting  on  principles  which  will  be  often  brought 
before  us  in  his  subsequent  career,  stoutly  refused  to  restore 
any  such  exceptional  privileges  if  they  had  once  lapsed.  A 
passage  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Sir  Frederick  Currie  is  of  special 
interest  as  indicating  at  this  date  the  point  on  which  he  was  to 
differ  most  widely  from  his  brother  Henry,  when  they  were 
sitting  at  the  same  Council  board  in  the  Punjab. 

I have  been  reading  over  Erskine’s  report  on  the  Simla  Hills.  His 
idea  of  royal  families  and  crowned  heads  is  ridiculous.  These  Rajas 
were  like  the  petty  barons  of  old.  They  had  their  little  castles,  from 
whence  they  sallied  out  to  plunder  the  country  or  each  other,  and  from 
which  they  overawed  the  people.  They  ruled  by  the  sword,  and  held 
their  lands  by  the  same  tenure.  The  strong  swallowed  up  the  weak. 
The  Ghoorkas  would  have  conquered  them.  They  called  in  the  Sikhs, 
who  drove  out  the  Ghoorkas  and  conquered  for  themselves.  The  hill- 
men  were  glad  to  get  rid  of  the  Sikhs,  who  bullied  them,  and  therefore 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


184 

made  common  cause  with  us.  I certainly  think  it  would  be  madness  in 
us  to  give  them  back  much  of  their  old  power  and  extensive  possessions. 
Continue  to  them  the  jagheers  held  under  the  Sikhs,  and  if  they  have 
done  good  service  in  the  late  war,  make  them  a money  present,  or  even 
give  them  an  annual  stipend  in  cash,  but  do  not  give  them  more  power. 
The  hills  are  far  behind  the  plains  in  the  intelligence  of  the  people,  and 
the  chiefs  are  behind  the  people.  Civilisation  would  certainly  not  pro- 
gress under  their  rule.  Infanticide,  suttee,  punishment  for  witchcraft, 
are  common  among  them.  Besides,  it  is  a mistake  to  think  that  by 
making  Rajas  and  chiefs  powerful  you  attach  the  country.  One  lac 
given  in  the  reduction  of  assessments  and  making  people  comfortable 
and  happy  in  their  homes  is  better  than  three  lacs  given  to  Rajas.  In- 
troduce our  laws,  our  system,  our  energy  and  forethought,  and  you  will 
do  real  good. 

Another  evil  more  deeply  rooted  even  than  the  payment  of 
taxes  in  kind,  and  which  prevailed,  more  or  less,  over  the  whole 
of  India,  was  especially  rife  among  the  Rajpoot  races  of  the 
North-West  and  the  Jullundur  Doab.  The  practice  of  female 
infanticide,  due  in  other  parts  of  the  world  either  to  simple  in- 
humanity or  to  poverty,  is,  in  this  part  of  India,  the  outcome, 
in  the  main,  of  family  pride.  The  Rajpoot  deigns  not  to  give 
his  daughter  to  a member  of  an  inferior  subdivision  of  caste  to 
himself,  for  he  himself  would  lose  caste  thereby  ; he  dares  not 
give  her  to  a member  of  the  same  subdivision  because  such 
connections  are  looked  upon  as  incestuous.  The  difficulty, 
therefore,  of  procuring  any  eligible  husband  for  his  daughter  ; 
the  ruinous  expense  connected,  according  to  immemorial  cus- 
tom, with  the  celebration  of  the  wedding  ; the  suspicion  with 
which  an  unmarried  woman  is  apt  to  be  regarded  by  the  mem- 
bers of  her  family  ; and  the  ease  with  which,  living  in  the  jeal- 
ous seclusion  of  his  ancestral  home,  the  father  can  get  rid  of 
an  obnoxious  addition  to  it ; — all  these  causes  combined  to  over- 
power the  voice  of  parental  affection.  So  wholesale  was  the 
destruction  of  female  infant  life  that,  when  the  attention  of 
philanthropists  was  first  directed  to  it,  whole  village  communi- 
ties were  found  to  be  without  a single  girl. 

But  it  may  be  well  to  recall  the  fact  that  female  infanticide  is 
by  no  means  peculiar  to  India.  More  than  twelve  centuries 
before  it  attracted  our  notice  there  it  had  been  condemned  and 
prohibited  by  the  great  reformer  in  Arabia.  ‘ To  send  women 
before  to  the  other  world  is  a benefit ; the  best  son-in-law  is  the 
grave,’ was  an  early  Arab  proverb.  ‘With  concord  and  per- 
manence, with  sons  and  no  daughters  ! ’ was,  under  such  sad 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  185 


conditions,  the  kindest  wish  that  could  be  offered  to  a newly 
married  Arab  couple.  Against  this  time-honoured  practice  the 
great  prophet  of  Arabia  had  fulminated  in  his  most  terrible  ac- 
cents. 1 At  the  last  great  day,’  he  says,  ‘ the  innocent  child  will 
demand  of  her  slayer  for  what  cause  she  was  put  to  death  ; ’ 
and  with  noble  scorn  he  cries,  * They  attribute  daughters  unto 
God — far  be  it  from  Him — but  unto  themselves,  children  of  the 
sex  which  they  desire  ; and  when  anyone  of  them  is  told  of  the 
birth  of  a female  child  his  face  becometh  black,  and  he  is  as 
though  he  would  choke  ; he  hideth  himself  from  the  people  be- 
cause of  the  ill-tidings  which  hath  been  told  him,  considering 
within  himself  whether  he  shall  keep  it  in  disgrace  or  bury  it 
in  the  dust.’ 1 The  reform  initiated  and  in  some  part  accom- 
plished among  the  Arabs  by  Mohammed  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, it  remained  for  the  Christian  conquerors  of  India  to  un- 
dertake and,  in  some  measure,  to  accomplish  in  the  nineteenth  ; 
and  it  was  to  the  Lawrences  and  to  their  school — most  of  all 
perhaps  to  Charles  Raikes — that  fell  the  lion’s  share  of  the  en- 
terprise in  the  Punjab  and  the  adjoining  districts. 

Nor  was  the  practice  confined  to  the  Rajpoots.  It  was  still 
more  universal  among  the  Bedis,  who  were  a subdivision  of  the 
Khuttri  caste  and  traced  back  their  descent  to  the  Guru  Nanuk. 
They  had  never  allowed  a single  female  child  to  live,  and  when 
the  Bedi  of  Oona,  the  head  of  the  tribe — in  fact,  the  spiritual 
head  of  the  Sikh  religion — was  warned  by  John  Lawrence  that 
he  must  forbid  infanticide  throughout  his  jagheer,  he  replied 
that  if  the  Sahib  so  willed  it  he  would  never  enter  his  harem 
again,  and  would  influence,  so  far  as  he  could  rightly  do  so, 
others  to  do  the  same,  but  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  command 
his  dependents  to  give  up  so  treasured  a custom.  ‘You  must 
do  it  or  give  up  your  lands,’  rejoined  John,  and  the  stiff-necked 
old  Levite  acquiesced  in  the  lesser  of  two  evils,  and  did  give  up 
— his  lands. 

Those  who  have  never  seen  John  Lawrence,  but  have  accom- 
panied me  thus  far  in  my  efforts  to  reproduce  the  living  man, 
can  imagine  the  grim  patience  with  which  he  would  listen  to  a 
solemn  deputation  from  the  whole  priestly  race  whose  most  cher- 
ished practice  he  was  thus  rudely  threatening,  and  who  based 
their  petition  on  the  proclamation  issued  by  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral that  all  their  rights  and  customs  would  be  respected. 


1 Koran . Sura  xvi. 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


186 

These  Bedis  (he  writes  to  a friend)  are  an  extraordinary  people.  You 
will  scarcely  believe  it  when  I tell  you  that  they  publicly  petitioned  me 
for  permission  to  destroy  all  their  female  children  ; which  it  seems  they 
have  hitherto  invariably  done.  I sent  for  some  of  the  most  respectable 
of  them,  and  set  forth  the  enormity  of  the  crime,  and  our  detestation  of 
the  practice,  before  some  hundreds  of  people,  and  ended  by  telling  them 
that  Government  would  not  only  never  consent  to  such  a villainous 
crime  being  perpetuated  under  its  rule,  but  that  we  should  certainly 
hang  every  man  who  was  convicted  of  such  a murder.  I also  told  them 
that  not  a jagheer  of  theirs  would  be  confirmed  until  the  matter  was 
satisfactorily  settled.  They  are  now  collecting  their  elders  to  confer  on 
the  matter.  In  the  meantime  I have  issued  proclamations  and  letters 
to  all  the  chiefs,  in  which,  without  mentioning  the  Bedis,  I have  de- 
nounced, under  the  highest  displeasure  of  Government  and  the  severest 
penalties,  infanticide,  suttee,  and  the  destruction  of  leprous  persons  by 
burying  them  alive  or  throwing  them  into  water.  I will  make  a report  on 
all  this  to  Government  directly  I hear  what  the  Bedis  say. 

And  those  who  have  seen  John  Lawrence  and  enjoyed  for 
themselves  the  vein  of  humour  which  played  round  even  his 
most  serious  talk,  and  relaxed  the  lines  of  his  scarred  and 
weatherbeaten  countenance,  will  not  be  slow  to  realise  the  ges- 
ture and  the  incommunicable  something  with  which,  in  his 
later  years — sitting  perhaps  amidst  a circle  of  ladies — he  would 
receive  the  news  of  the  birth  of  a daughter  in  a family  which 
might,  perchance,  be  already  too  well  stocked  with  them,  and 
would  remark,  ‘ Ah  ! those  Bedis  were  not  such  bad  fellows 
after  all  ; the  only  thing  that  I am  disposed  to  regret  in  my 
Indian  administration  is  that  I was  so  hard  upon  them  in  the 
matter  of  female  infanticide  ! ’ 

A few  sentences,  taken  almost  at  random  from  John  Law- 
rence’s letters  during  this  time — though  it  will  be  remembered 
that  now,  and  throughout  his  career,  they  deal  in  the  main 
with  matters  of  detail,  and  therefore  are  of  little  interest  to  a 
subsequent  generation — will  give  some  idea  of  his  impatience 
of  a lazy  or  incapable  subordinate  ; of  his  vein  of  grim  humour; 
of  the  shrewdness  with  which  he  was  able  to  discern  in  the 
cloud  no  bigger  than  a man’s  hand  a danger  which  might  one 
day  overspread  the  firmament  and  burst  in  a deluge  of  ruin  on 
India.  1 I do  not  think,’  he  says,  when  discussing  the  possible 
resistance  of  the  Kangra  garrison,  ‘that  they  will  hold  out; 
with  the  country  against  them  and  their  own  Durbar,  it  would 
be  useless.  However,  no  one  can  tell  what  fools  may  do.’  This 
wholesome  incredulity  as  to  the  limits  of  human  folly,  this 


1846  COMMISSIONER  OF  TRANS-SUTLEJ  STATES.  1 87 

‘ credo  quia  impossible,’  often  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  deal- 
ing with  masses  of  men.  He  declines  to  take  Runjore  Sing,  a 
Sikh,  with  him  in  his  march  against  a Sikh  garrison,  because, 
as  ‘ renter  of  hill-states,  he  had  had  great  opportunities  of  ap- 
propriating villages,  which  he  does  not  seem  to  have  neglected.’ 
When  the  Bedis  complained  that  the  irregular  troops  raised  by 
us  from  their  neighbourhood  had  plundered  and  annoyed  them: 
‘ I dare  say  they  have,'  remarked  John,  ‘it  would  only  be  like 
spoiling  the  Egyptians.’ 

As  regards  the  impracticable  assistant  to  whom  I have  al- 
ready referred,  he  writes  to  his  brother  Henry — 

I had  to  send  all ’s  reports  back,  they  are  so  badly  done.  He  is 

a rara  avis , and  says  his  work  is  killing  him.  A very  innocent  murder 
it  would  be ! 

And  again,  in  another  letter — 

I really  do  not  know  what  to  do  with . I can  get  little  or  no  work 

out  of  him,  and,  with  more  assistance  than  any  man  in  the  province,  he 
says  he  is  overworked.  He  has  a certain  degree  of  ability,  but  is  hard, 
violent,  and  without  any  system.  He  put  one  man  in  irons  on  the  roads 
the  other  day  for  contempt  of  court.  I wish  the  Governor-General 
would  make  him  a Resident ! he  is  enough  to  provoke  a rebellion. 

And  on  the  principle  on  which  he  always  acted  of  never  saying 
a word  of  blame  behind  a person’s  back  which  he  would  shrink 
from  saying,  if  necessary,  before  his  face,  he  writes  to  him  thus  : — ■ 

My  dear , I have  received  your  letter.  As  I do  not  agree  in  any 

respect  with  the  views  you  there  lay  down,  I think  it  kinder  and  fairer 
to  write  to  you  privately  on  the  subject  before  I take  any  public  notice 
of  the  matter.  I feel  that  I have  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with  in  the 
late  correspondence.  I think  from  the  day  you  joined  the  division  that 
I have  treated  you  with  every  consideration,  and 'have  supported  you 
wherever  I could.  A sense  of  duty  alone  compelled  me  to  notice  your 
irregularities  in  the  way  I have  done,  and  I do  not  think  I could  have 
said  less  than  I did.  By  your  account  I am  altogether  wrong.  In  my 
own  judgment  I am  right.  But  I cannot  let  your  letter  remain  on  my 
record  unanswered,  let  alone  admit  that  you  have  cause  for  complaint. 
You  may  have  worked  hard.  But  I can  only  judge  by  results,  and  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  in  doing  so  you  have,  in  my  judgment, 
fallen  far  short  of  your  own  estimate. 

This  is  not  the  only  letter  of  the  kind  preserved  in  his  folios, 
but  there  are  not  many  of  them,  for  he  generally  managed  to 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846 


188 

pass  on  assistants  of  this  type — if  not  to  a Residency — to  some 
post  which  would  be  more  congenial  to  them.  When  it  was 
a matter  of  praise  he  often  acted  on  the  opposite  principle.  He 
rarely  praised  a man  to  his  face,  and  hence  it  has  sometimes 
been  said  that  he  failed  fully  to  appreciate  other  people’s  merits. 
But,  as  I shall  show  hereafter,  he  was  lavish  enough  of  his 
praise  behind  their  backs. 

Here  is  the  earliest  hint  I have  found  in  his  papers  of  a dan- 
ger which,  if  its  meaning  had  been  fully  grasped  by  the  author- 
ities, might  have  done  something  towards  averting  or  postponing 
the  Indian  Mutiny.  ‘Government  will  get  as  many  Rajpoots 
on  the  hills  as  it  can  want,  either  for  regular  or  irregular  corps. 
Thousands  served  in  the  Sikh  army  and  would  do  so  in  ours.  I 
do  not  think  that  they  will  object  to  go  anywhere  or  do  anything. 
In  our  regular  corps  these  men  will  be  very  valuable,  as  coming 
from  a different  part  of  the  country  and  having  different  ideas 
and  interests  from  our  Oudh  sepoys.  As  it  is  now,  our  sepoys 
are  nearly  all  from  Oudh  and  its  vicinity,  and  the  majority  are 
Brahmins  ; hence  it  is  that  in  any  quarrel  they  so  readily  com- 
bine. The  Rajpoots  here  are  a very  fine  people,  and,  having 
little  to  live  on  at  home,  they  are  glad  to  take  service.’ 

In  the  occupations  which  I have  described,  the  first  three 
months  of  his  Commissionership  passed  away.  They  were  an 
epitome  of  the  whole  three  years  during  which  he  was  to  hold 
the  office,  and  they  anticipated  faithfully,  on  a small  scale,  the 
responsibilities  of  the  Punjab  Board  and  of  the  Chief  Commis- 
sionership. They  were  months  of  hard  work  and  rapid  prog- 
ress ; and  in  the  month  of  June,  just  when  he  might  have 
hoped  for  some  diminution  of  his  twelve  hours  a day  at  his  desk, 
he  was  taken  ill  with  a violent  attack  of  fever  and  ague,  which 
drove  him  across  the  hills  to  recruit  his  strength  at  Simla,  where 
his  wife  and  family  were  then  residing.  1 1 is  brother  Ilenrv  had 
gone  there  before  him  to  consult  with  the  Governor-General  on 
the  affairs  of  the  Punjab  in  general.  But  he,  too,  was  worn  out 
with  his  labors  as  Resident  at  Lahore,  and  as  George  Macgregor, 
his  chief  assistant  there,  also  wanted  leave  of  absence,  the  already 
overworked  John  was,  after  a few  weeks’  rest,  requested  by  Lord 
Hardinge  to  take  temporary  charge  of  his  brother’s  onerous 
post  at  the  capital  of  the  Punjab,  while  he  was  also  to  retain  his 
own  Jullundur  Commissionership.  How  he  managed  to  com- 
bine the  two,  and  to  make  each,  in  some  measure,  assist  the 
other,  we  shall  gather  from  the  ensuing  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE.  1S46—  184S. 

The  one-eyed  adventurer  of  the  Punjab  who  had  built  up,  in 
his  long  career,  an  empire  stretching  from  the  point  where  the 
waters  of  the  five  rivers  unite  in  one  majestic  stream  to  the 
eternal  snows  of  the  Himalayas,  and  even  beyond  them  again 
to  the  Karakorum  Range,  and  had  torn  away  from  the  Afghans 
on  one  side,  and  from  the  Great  Mogul  on  the  other,  some  of 
their  fairest  provinces,  died  in  1839.  It  happened  to  be  the 
very  year  in  which  the  young  English  civilian  who  was  one 
day  to  rule  the  fabric  that  he  had  reared,  and  to  reap  vastly 
more  from  the  plains  of  the  Punjab  than  he  had  ever  cared 
to  sow,  had  himself  seemed  stricken  to  the  death  at  Etawa, 
but,  as  though  he  was  reserved  for  something  great,  had  deter- 
mined not  to  die.  Throughout  his  career,  Runjeet  Sing  had 
found,  or  had  made,  plenty  of  work  for  the  fiery  soldiers  of  the 
Khalsa  commonwealth.  But  he  had  also  held  them  in  check 
with  a strong  hand,  and,  with  one  single  exception — the  year 
1809,  when  he  seemed  disposed  to  claim  the  Jumna  instead  of 
the  Sutlej  as  his  south-eastern  boundary — had  managed  to  keep 
on  the  best  of  terms  with  his  English  neighbours.  Not  that 
he  was  in  any  way  blind  to  the  future.  Unable  either  to  read 
or  write,  he  had  the  insight  of  genius,  and  on  one  occasion,  as 
the  well-known  story  goes,  he  asked  to  be  shown  upon  a map 
the  parts  of  India  occupied  by  the  English.  They  were  marked 
in  red,  and  as  his  informant  pointed  successively  to  Madras, 
Bombay,  Bengal,  and  the  North-West  Provinces,  all  overspread 
by  that  monotonous  and  usurping  tint,  he  exclaimed,  * It  will 
soon  all  be  red.’ 1 He  closed  the  map  with  a submission  to  the 
inevitable  which  a good  Muslim  might  have  envied,  but  with  a 
strong  practical  determination  that,  if  prudence  could  prevent 
it,  the  evil  should  come,  not  in  his  own,  but  in  his  successor’s 
days. 


1 Sab  Lai  hojaega. 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 846-48 


190 

The  death  of  Runjeet  was  followed  by  six  years  of  anarchy. 
The  strong  hand  had  been  withdrawn,  and  there  was  the  scram- 
ble for  power  and  for  life  usual  on  the  death  of  an  Eastern 
monarch.  One  after  the  other  his  chief  relatives  and  ministers 
came  to  the  front,  but  only  that  each — as  in  the  days  of  Zimri, 
Tibni  and  Omri,  at  Samaria,  or  of  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius, 
at  Rome— might,  after  a brief  interval,  lose  power  and  life  to- 
gether. ‘The  people  that  followed  Omri  prevailed  against  them 
that  followed  Tibni,  so  Tibni  died  and  Omri  reigned.’  Such  is 
the  inimitably  pregnant  sentence  which  sums  up,  better  than 
pages  of  narrative  could  do,  the  fortunes  of  an  Eastern  dynasty, 
and  often  also  of  an  Eastern  people. 

The  priest  who  slew  the  slayer, 

And  shall  himself  be  slain, 

is,  perhaps,  an  equally  pregnant  description  of  the  career  of 
nine  out  of  ten  of  those  who  aspire  to  rule  such  states  as  Lahore 
was  then,  or  as  Cabul  was  then  and  is  still.  At  last  Duleep 
Sing,  a son  of  Runjeet  of  tender  years,  and  now  best  known  to 
fame  as  an  English  gentleman  devoted  to  English  sport  on  the 
most  royal  scale,  had  been  named  by  acclamation  successor  to 
his  father.  But  to  proclaim  a child  the  temporal  ruler  of  the 
Khalsa  commonwealth  was  of  course  to  give  the  power  for 
many  years  to  come  to  his  intriguing  mother,  the  Rani  Chunda, 
and  to  Lai  Sing,  her  reigning  paramour. 

But  Queen-mother,  and  boy  King,  and  effeminate  vizier  all 
found  that  they  reigned  rather  than  governed,  and  that  too  only 
on  sufferance  of  the  Khalsa  army.  It  was  an  army  turbulent, 
enthusiastic,  fanatical,  not  knowing  what  it  was  to  be  beaten, 
composed  of  some  eighty  thousand  men,  trained  by  French 
and  Italian  generals,  and  supplied  with  the  best  artillery  then 
known.  Fearing  the  reckless  fury  of  their  soldiery,  the  Sirdars, 
as  I have  already  shown,  had,  in  self-defence,  turned  it  against 
the  English,  and  the  four  battles,  fought  within  a space  of  two 
months,  of  the  Sutlej  campaign,  if  they  proved  to  the  Khalsa 
army  that  they  had  at  length  found  their  betters,  proved  also  to 
the  English  that  the  Sikh  was  very  different  to  any  foe  they  had 
hitherto  met. 

We  began  the  campaign  (says  John  Lawrence)  as  we  have  begun  every 
campaign  in  India  before  and  since,  by  despising  our  foes  ; but  we  had 
hardly  begun  it  before  we  learned  to  respect  them,  and  to  find  that  they 


1 846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


191 

were  the  bravest,  the  most  determined,  and  the  most  formidable  whom 
we  had  ever  met  in  India.  Hitherto,  we  had  found  in  all  our  wars  that  we 
had  only  to  close  with  our  enemies,  when,  however  overwhelming  might 
be  the  odds  against  us,  victory  was  certain.  But  in  this  campaign  we 
found  that  the  Sikhs  not  only  stood  to  and  died  at  their  guns,  but  that 
their  infantry,  even  after  the  guns  had  been  lost,  were  undismayed  and 
were  still  willing  to  contest  the  victory  with  us. 

With  such  heroes — the  heroes  of  Ferozeshah  and  Sobraon — 
Sir  Henry  Hardinge  was  willing  to  conclude  peace  on  equitable 
conditions.  Their  independence  was  left  to  them  ; the  claims, 
such  as  they  were,  of  the  young  Maharaja,  of  the  Maharani,  and 
of  her  lover,  who  had  done  so  much  to  betray  the  cause  of  the 
commonwealth  in  the  late  war,  were  duly  recognised,  and  for 
the  next  nine  months  an  English  Resident,  with  ten  thousand 
men  at  his  back,  was  to  be  stationed  by  the  express  request  of 
the  Punjab  Government  at  Lahore.  Ilis  duties  w’ere  of  the 
most  delicate  kind.  To  curb  the  turbulence  and  cut  down  the 
numbers  of  the  angry  soldiery ; to  help  the  Durbar  to  bring 
contentment  out  of  discontent  and  order  out  of  chaos  ; to  enable 
the  Sikh  Government  by  the  end  of  the  year  to  stand  alone, 
and  so  to  give  the  brave  Sikh  nation  one  more  chance ; — such 
was  the  noble  but  thankless  task  imposed  upon  him.  But  the 
chance  was  to  be  a bond  fide  one,  that  we  were  not  waiting  for  a 
more  convenient  opportunity,  and  that  our  moderation  was  not 
merely  dictated  by  our  necessities,  the  strongest  guarantee 
possible  was  given  by  the  selection  of  the  person  who  was  to  act 
as  Resident.  The  best  man  in  all  India  for  the  purpose,  the 
chivalrous  champion  of  native  states,  the  protector  of  all  who 
were  down  simply  because  they  were  so,  the  man  who  was  as 
gentle  and  considerate  as  he  was  high-spirited  and  brave,  was 
sent  to  Lahore  by  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  to  fill  the  post.  And  if 
Troy  could  have  been  saved  by  any  right  hand,  if  any  native 
state  could  have  been  rescued,  in  spite  of  itself,  from  that  uni- 
form red  colour  which  was  overspreading  the  peninsula  from 
the  Himalayas  to  Cape  Comorin,  it  would  have  been  by  the 
right  hand  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 

He  set  to  work  with  a will  at  once.  With  the  consent  of  the 
Durbar  he  reduced  the  number  of  the  soldiery,  prevailed  on 
some  of  them  to  re-enlist  in  our  service,  checked  the  desire  for 
vengeance  among  those  who  had  long  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
their  chiefs,  and  suppressed  a disturbance  at  Lahore,  known  as 
the  ‘ cow  riot,’  which  might  have  grown  into  a formidable  rising, 


192 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


at  the  cost  of  the  life  of  one  offender  only.  The  questions  con- 
nected with  the  slaughter  of  the  cow  are,  as  I have  shown  in  a 
previous  chapter,  a standing  difficulty  with  our  Indian  adminis- 
trators. ‘ As  long,’  said  a native  chief  to  Captain  Eastwick,  ‘ as 
you  English  kill  the  cow  and  cut  its  skin,  so  long  there  will  be 
an  impassable  gulf  between  us  ; ’ and  the  Sikh,  though  he  had 
thrown  off  much  of  his  Hinduism,  had  retained  all,  perhaps 
more  than  all,  of  the  Hindu  reverence  for  the  sacred  animal. 

But  Henry  Lawrence  had  been  called  away,  as  I have  related, 
to  Kangra,  and  thence  to  Simla,  before  he  had  well  begun  his 
uphill  work,  and  his  mantle  was  to  fall  for  the  time  upon  the 
broad  and  willing  back  of  his  brother  John. 

It  is  no  disparagement  at  all  to  John  Lawrence  to  say  that  the 
work  of  the  Residency  at  Lahore  was  not  naturally  so  congenial 
to  him  as  it  would  have  been  to  Henry.  He  had  less  sympathy 
with  the  native  aristocracy  by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  partly, 
perhaps,  because  his  view  of  them  was  too  near  and  too  clear  ; 
partly,  also,  I think,  because  he  was  less  able  than  his  brother 
to  distinguish  between  those  vices  which  were  the  natural  and 
necessary  result  of  the  system  in  which  they  had  been  brought 
up,  and  those  which  might  justly  be  looked  upon  as  the  result 
of  individual  depravity.  In  any  case,  he  had  a less  enthusiastic 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  a satisfactory  reorganisation  of  the 
’country  under  native  rule.  It  is  all  the  more  to  his  credit, 
therefore,  that  he  threw  himself  into  his  work  as  though  he 
did  thoroughly  believe  in  it.  What  would  have  been  a delicate 
and  difficult  operation  enough  in  Henry’s  hands  was  necessari- 
ly even  more  so  in  his  ; for  he  was  only  * acting  ’ for  his  brother, 
and  was  bound  in  honour  to  carry  out  that  brother’s  general 
views,  even  where  they  most  differed  from  his  own.  Simla, 
moreover,  was  not  so  remote  but  that  Henry,  on  the  strength  of 
the  information  regularly  supplied  to  him  by  his  deputy,  could 
have  a voice  in  every  important  matter  at  Lahore  as  it  turned 
up  ; and  conscious  of  the  general  difference  of  view  between 
himself  and  his  brother,  he  was,  perhaps,  more  ready  to  detect 
opposition  where  none  was  either  intended  or  existed.  The 
disadvantages  inherent  in  a system  of  divided  responsibility 
were  thus  intensified  ; for  Henry  was  near  enough  to  criticise  or 
overrule,  not  near  enough  to  give  present  help  in  matters  of  im- 
mediate difficulty. 

From  August  to  December,  1846,  I have  been  able — and  it  is 
only  at  this  period  of  his  life  that  it  is  possible  to  do  so — to  fol- 


1 846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


193 


low  John  Lawrence’s  doings  in  three  different  sets  of  letters  ; 
one  letter  of  each  set  written  almost  daily.  The  first  set  consists 
of  official  letters,  written  with  much  care  and  detail  to  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India;  the  second,  of  demi-official  letters  to  his 
friend  Sir  Frederick  Currie  ; the  third  are  private,  and  were 
dashed  off  hastily  with  little  regard  to  style  or  even  grammar,  to 
his  brother  Henry.  The  more  important  events  which  are  com- 
ing on  prevent  my  giving  more  than  a few  extracts  from  these, 
and  1 take  them  by  preference  from  the  private  letters,  since 
they  are  the  only  set  of  the  kind  which  have  come  into  my 
hands.  Here  are  portions  of  three  of  them,  written  from  La- 
hore, as  will  be  observed,  on  three  successive  days,  almost  im- 
mediately after  he  had  taken  charge  there.  They  are  the  result 
of  first  impressions  only,  but  they  have  the  freshness  peculiar 
to  first  impressions,  and,  taken  together,  they  give  a fair  picture 
of  the  selfish  and  intriguing  Sirdars,  who,  if  they  hated  the  Eng- 
lish much,  hated  each  other  more  ; of  the  profligate  Maharani 
and  her  vizier,  Lai  Sing  ; of  the  efforts  made  by  the  acting  Res- 
ident to  obtain  for  the  troops  their  arrears  of  pay,  to  bring  the 
finances  into  a satisfactory  condition,  to  infuse  some  little  pub- 
lic spirit  into  the  Government,  and  so  to  give  the  country  a 
chance  of  standing  by  itself  when  the  time  came  for  our  troops 
to  leave.  I will  only  add  that  no  mere  selection  can  give  any 
adequate  idea  of  the  energy  and  the  ability,  the  tact  and  the 
temper,  the  loyalty  to  his  brother,  and  the  absolute  unselfishness 
with  which  a study  of  the  three  sets  of  letters,  as  a whole,  would 
show  John  Lawrence  to  have  thrown  himself  into  his  unconge- 
nial and  unenviable  task. 


Lahcre  : August  26,  1846. 

My  dear  Hal, -‘-I  have  little  time  to  write  you  long  yarns  of  affairs  here  ; 
the  work  keeps  me  busy  all  day,  and  the  heat  is  so  excessive  that  I feel 
I have  as  much  to  do  as  I can  well  get  through.  Matters  are  very  quiet. 
The  discipline  and  order  among  the  troops  is  greater  than  anything  of 
the  kind  that  I recollect,  and  the  town  is  cleaner  and  healthier  than  per- 
haps any  city  in  India.  We  ride  out  daily,  but  hardly  meet  any  of  the 
disbanded  soldiery  ; indeed,  I hear  they  are  all  quiet  at  home.  I cannot 
see  why  Rajah  Lai  Sing  should  not  be  able  to  carry  on  the  government 
when  the  army  leaves  ; should  he  fail  it  must  be  his  own  fault.  I do  not 
think  that  he  would  find  much  difficulty  in  conciliating  the  Sirdars  if  he 
would  only  set  about  it  honestly.  He  promises  everything,  but,  I fear, 
is  not  anxious  to  do  what  Government  wishes,  not  so  much  from  any  wish 
to  oppose  Lord  Hardinge,  as  because  he  really  thinks  his  only  chance  of 
maintaining  himself  is  the  policy  he  has  hitherto  pursued  to  the  chiefs. 

Vol.  I. — 13 


194 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


He  is  despised  for  his  connection  with  the  Rani,  and  hated  also.  But  I 
am  not  at  all  sure  that  his  successor,  be  he  who  he  may,  would  be  much 
more  popular.  He  is  evidently  a good  deal  alarmed  at  my  advent,  as 
well  as  at  my  allowing  some  of  the  chiefs  to  visit  me.  This,  however, 
will  do  him  good  ; so  long  as  he  had,  or  thought  he  had,  all  the  hearing 
to  himself  he  was  comparatively  careless.  I told  him  that  I was  his  real 
friend,  and  that  though  I listened  to  all,  I was  not  ready  to  believe  all  I 
heard  ; and  that,  moreover,  if  what  I did  learn  was  unsatisfactory,  I 
should  not  conceal  it  from  him.  The  Maharani  is  very  well ; she  is  said 
to  divide  her  favours  between  the  Raja  and  two  of  the  servants  of  the 
palace,  and  to  be  very  charitable  to  the  fakirs,  probably  by  way  of  mak- 
ing up  for  such  peccadilloes. 

Lahore : August  27. 

My  dear  Hal, — things  are  in  statu  quo  here.  The  Durbar  are  in  some 
little  tribulation,  consulting  together  privately.  The  conduct  of  the  Raja 
is  said  to  have  improved  lately,  especially  since  I arrived,  but  the  chiefs 
give  him  little  credit,  saying  it  is  only  owing  to  us  that  he  thus  acts. 
Some  people  say  that  he  will  not  be  sorry  when  the  army  leaves,  as  his 
authority  will  then  be  more  complete,  and  he  can  then  act  as  he  pleases. 
No  doubt  at  times  he  feels  our  interference  irksome,  but,  on  the  whole, 
I feel  certain  that  he  dreads  our  departure,  and  so  does  the  Rani.  I had 
a long  conversation  with  a very  clever  fellow,  a follower  of  Runjore  Sing, 
whom  I knew  in  the  Jullundur  Doab  as  possessing  the  full  confidence  of 
that  chief.  He  says  that  all  the  chiefs  are  against  the  vizier,  Lai  Sing,  but 
that  so  long  as  we  are  here  they  will  do  nothing,  and,  indeed,  perhaps 
not  when  we  go,  for  that  both  they  and  the  army  are  afraid  of  another 
war,  but  that  they  hate  Lai  Sing.  I asked  him  what  they  wished,  and 
why  they  did  not  come  to  see  me  and  state  their  grievances,  to  which  he 
replied  that,  if  they  did  so,  directly  the  army  left,  Lai  Sing  would  be  re- 
venged on  them.  I asked  him  what  would  satisfy  the  chiefs,  and,  if  left 
to  themselves,  what  they  would  propose  ; he  said  that,  until  the  Mahar- 
aja was  old  enough  to  act  for  himself,  the  chiefs  would  wish  an  officer  to 
be  stationed  here  to  mediate  between  them  and  the  vizier  ; that  the  viz- 
ier should  not  be  allowed  to  confer  jagheers  at  his  pleasure  and  disgrace 
the  old  chiefs  ; and  that  on  public  matters  they  should  be  consulted,  and 
that  he  should  not  possess  the  whole  power.  He  said  that  the  Sikhs,  as  a 
nation,  would  not  submit  to  Lai  Sing,  and  that  it  was  only  from  fear  of 
us  that  the  people  behaved  well.  I said  all  this  was  very  well,  but  that 
he  knew  that  the  chiefs  were  equally  jealous  of  each  other  ; that,  though 
they  might  unite  to  destroy  the  minister,  they  would  act  the  same  part  to 
the  very  man  they  put  forward  themselves  ; and  that  it  was  only  to  be 
vizier  to  be  unpopular.  He  said  he  would  bring  me  a paper  signed  by 
a number  of  the  chiefs  showing  what  were  their  feelings,  if  I would  send 
it  to  Government. 

It  strikes  me  that  before  the  army  leaves  it  would  be  well,  if  his  lord- 
ship  does  not  object,  that  a list  were  made  out  of  all  jagheers,  and  such 
a reduction  once  for  all,  with  our  consent,  made  from  those  of  each 


1846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


195 


chief  as  the  necessities  of  the  state  requires,  after  which  (1)  the  Raja 
should  not  be  allowed,  without  our  leave,  to  confiscate  any  more  lands. 
(2)  That  he  be  not  allowed  during  the  Maharaja’s  minority  to  alienate 
any  lands  of  the  Crown,  in  fact  not  to  have  the  power  of  making  grants 
of  land  in  jagheer.  (3)  That  certain  of  the  most  influential  chiefs  be 
joined  with  him  in  the  ministry  so  far  that  all  important  questions  may 
be  discussed  before  all,  and  nothing  determined  on  which  involves  or- 
ganic changes  in  matters  of  great  consequence,  except  with  the  consent 
of  the  majority.  I think  something  of  this  kind  would  give  tone  and 
character  to  the  government.  There  seems  no  reason  that  the  minis- 
ters should  not  manage  matters  if  they  show  even  ordinary  tact  ; and 
yet  I fear  that  they  will  fail.  So  long  as  there  is  a Sahib  at  his  elbow, 
with  a lever  on  his  nose,  the  vizier  will  keep  straight,  but  directly  he  is 
removed  he  is  inclined  to  go  wrong. 


August  28. 

My  dear  Hal, — I am  glad  you  are  not  to  die,  though  I did  not  know  I 
had  told  anyone  you  would  do  so.  Matters  are  quiet  enough  here. 
Every  day  I see  more  and  more  of  the  bitter  feeling  of  the  Sirdars  against 
Lai  Sing.  He  takes  great  precautions,  and  never  moves  without  a 
strong  guard,  and  is  armed  himself.  This  morning  he  was  with  us  at 
the  Shalimar  Gardens,  and  I observed  a double-barrelled  pistol  in  his 
belt,  loaded  and  capped.  Nevertheless,  I think  he  will  be  assassinated 
some  day,  and  perhaps  this  would  be  the  best  thing  that  could  happen 
for  the  Punjab,  for  the  chiefs  would  then  either  set  up  Sirdar  Lena  Sing 
or  Chutter  Sing  ; whereas  Lai  Sing  could  only  be  set  aside  by  our  strong 
arm,  and  if  allowed  to  live  in  the  Punjab  would  be  the  centre  of  disaf- 
fection, and  the  Rani  would  not  give  him  up.  They  had  a slight  row 
the  other  day,  but  she  said  she  would  follow  him  over  the  world,  and 
give  up  everything  for  him.  He  is  a sad  liar,  and  yet  has  ability  ; and 
if  he  could  only  be  persuaded  to  act  fairly  might  weather  the  storm.  I 
observed  to-day  that  he  paid  great  attention  to  General  Ram  Sing,  who 
has  the  character  of  being  a man  of  ability  and  action.  A few  such  sol- 
diers of  the  Sikhs  round  him  would  make  a great  difference  in  his  posi- 
tion. But  think  well  over  what  I said  yesterday  about  limiting  the 
vizier's  power.  He  will  not  stand  without  it. 

I like  Sir  John  Littler  much  ; he  keeps  up  excellent  good  discipline, 
and  is  a fine  fellow.  I don’t  think  I ever  knew  the  sepoys  so  well  be- 
haved. We  should  have  little  difficulty  in  the  event  of  a war  here- 
after. The  opinion  of  us  as  rulers  is  greatly  changed.  The  only  evil  is 
that  when  we  get  a country'  things  go  smoothly,  for  the  people  see  the 
benefit  of  the  change,  and  are  satisfied.  But  as  they  die  off,  or  forget 
the  olden  days  of  trouble  and  misrule,  they  feel  slight  twitches  from  our 
shoe  pinching,  and  get  discontented.  The  Jullundur  is  going  on  beauti- 
fully. Cust  and  Lake  will,  I think,  turn  out  good  officers  ; will 

never  be  worth  his  salt.  He  is  too  old  to  learn.  Take  care  of  the  wee 
wife. 


196 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1 846-48 


A few  days  later,  moved  by  the  ever-increasing  difficulties 
which  he  saw  in  the  way  of  our  leaving  the  country  entirely  to 
itself,  but  still  most  anxious  to  avoid  annexation,  John  Law- 
rence came  gradually  round  to  the  idea  of  our  managing  the 
country  for  the  young  Maharaja  till  he  came  of  age. 

September  8. 

I am  convinced  that  matters  cannot  be  carried  on  if  we  leave  the 
country.  The  only  plan  which  is  both  just  and  politic,  so  far  as  I can 
see  my  way,  is  that  we  put  the  country  in  chancery — that  is,  manage  it 
until  the  boy  Maharaja  arrive  at  years  of  discretion.  This  would  be 
agreeable,  I believe,  to  the  chiefs. 

The  freedom  with  which,  in  other  letters,  he  describes  the 
rascality  which  was  going  on  around  him,  and  expresses  his 
opinion  of  it,  seems  to  have  given  some  offence  to  his  brother, 
and,  possibly,  also  in  higher  quarters  still,  and  he  thus  defends 
himself : — 

September  13. 

My  dear  Hal, — Edwardes  starts  to-night,  and  will  be  at  Jummoo  on 
the  1 5th.  I hope  Lumsden  will  be  back  in  a couple  of  days,  for  the  mis- 
cellaneous work  of  the  town  is  full  as  much  as  one  man  can  do.  I have 
written  to-day  a short  letter  to  Government.  I have  given  as  few 
opinions  as  possible.  However,  many  of  the  facts  are  literally  opinions, 
and  that,  too,  the  opinions  of  others.  I have  been  looking  over  my  let- 
ters, and  do  not  see  any  greater  variety  in  my  opinions  than  a man 
should  be  allowed  in  politics.  If  no  margin  is  allowed,  one  would  have 
a difficult  job.  I said  I thought  that  the  Raja’s  great  difficulty  was  the 
chiefs,  and  that  if  he  could  manage  them  he  might  do.  So  I think  now  ; 
but  he  has  not  done  this,  and,  what  is  worse,  has  not  done  what  he 
might  in  other  respects.  I feel  convinced  now  that  he  will  fail ; but  his 
failure  will  arise  from  his  own  deficiencies,  and  not  from  exterior  influ- 
ences. He  is,  in  some  respects,  anxious  to  do  well,  but  takes  the  wrong 
course,  and  instead  of  meeting  advice  with  argument,  simply  tells  lies. 
Like  an  ostrich,  he  thinks  if  his  head  is  hidden  all  the  rest  of  his  body  is 
covered  ; so  he  thinks  that  if  we  don’t  know  what  he  does  all  will  go 
well.  I suppose  this  Kashmcre  affair  will  alter  the  policy  of  our  Gov- 
ernment towards  the  Punjab.  I am  getting  very  fair  returns  of  the  rev- 
enue to-day.  I have  got  about  twenty  lacs.  In  a week  more  I shall 
have  them  all. 

Should  we  find  it  necessary  to  take  the  country  the  plan  will  be  to 
make  a separate  arrangement  with  Dewan  Moolraj,  and  allow  him  to 
continue  Dewan  under  us.  He  pays  the  Sikhs  twenty-one  lacs  and  keeps 
up  a large  army.  We  can  get  no  returns  in  detail  for  that  country,  for 
none  have  ever  been  rendered.  It  is  said  to  yield  him  forty  lacs  at  least. 
As  he  would  no  longer  require  the  same  army,  he  could  afford  to  pay 


1 846—4$ 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


197 


us  thirty  lacs  without  difficulty.  He  had  agreed,  I understand,  to  give 
twenty-six  when  Jowahir  Sing  was  killed.  An  arrangement  of  this  kind 
would,  I think,  simplify  matters  if  we  take  the  Punjab.  1 am  not  ad- 
vocating that  policy,  but  the  contrary.  I am  only  thinking  how  we  could 
manage  if  we  do.  I am  still  hard  at  work,  never  moving  off  my  chair 
for  ten  hours  a day.  I really  do  not  know  what  would  become  of  this 
country  if  they  had  not  me  to  look  after  it. 

With  what  frankness  and  ability  John  Lawrence  laid  his  views 
on  these  and  similar  subjects  before  Government,  and  what  a 
statesman-like  grasp  he  showed  even  then  of  questions  which 
one  day  would  become  burning  questions,  and  which  he  would 
himself  have  the  chief  responsibility  of  deciding,  an  extract 
from  a long  and  elaborate  despatch,  dated  September  11,  will 
indicate. 

Feeling  convinced  that  such  must  be  the  result  of  Government  either 
withdrawing  the  army  or  maintaining  it  at  Lahore  under  the  present 
system,  it  is  perhaps  stepping  beyond  the  line  of  my  duty  to  suggest  a 
remedy.  At  the  risk  of  such  being  the  opinion,  I would  recommend  for 
the  consideration  of  the  Right  Honourable  the  Governor-General,  the 
expediency  of  Government  undertaking  the  management  of  the  country 
in  trust  for  the  young  Maharaja  until  he  arrives  at  manhood.  It  will  not, 
1 venture  to  say,  be  politic,  it  will  not  be  just,  that  we  leave  it  to  fall  into 
anarchy.  It  will  not,  I conceive,  be  eventually  popular  with  the  Sikhs, 
who  are  strongly  national,  that  we  take  the  country  ourselves.  Those 
who  would  feel  the  advantages  of  our  rule,  who  estimate  the  blessings  of 
security  to  life  and  property,  of  perfect  toleration  to  religion,  of  our  en- 
couragement of  trade  and  agriculture,  would  no  doubt  rejoice ; but  there 
are  many  powerful  classes  who  cannot  fail  to  be  inimical  to  our  rule. 
Such  are  the  chiefs  and  great  holders  of  rent-free  lands,  the  priests  of 
both  persuasions,  Hindu  and  Mohammedan,  and,  in  particular,  all  peo- 
ple who  live  by  service.  To  them  our  system  affords  not  the  means  of 
livelihood,  or,  if  it  does,  it  is  not  in  the  way  they  have  lived. 

Our  very  existence,  in  my  judgment,  depends  on  our  gradually  re- 
ducing the  power  and  consequence  of  the  chiefs  of  a country,  and  even 
when  we  grant  them  their  jagheers  for  life  we  curtail  their  power,  by 
obliging  to  submit  to  rules  and  systems  those  who  have  never  hitherto 
recognised  any  law  but  their  own  will  and  pleasure.  Under  the  native 
system  a jagheerdar  is  a little  sovereign  with  the  powers  of  life  and  death. 
He  collects  the  revenues,  levies  customs,  holds  courts  of  justice — in 
short,  he  is  the  baron  of  olden  time.  So  long  as  he  keeps  well  with  the 
court,  or  has  power  to  resist  it,  he  is  irresponsible  to  man.  But  all  this 
changes  under  our  rule  : He  can  only  collect  his  revenue  according  to 
law;  he  is  prohibited  from  seizing  his  people’s  cattle  or  their  children, 
and  he  is  arraigned  and  punished  for  acts  which,  but  a short  time  before, 


198 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1 846-48 


he  committed  with  impunity.  Can  he  be  otherwise  than  dissatisfied 
with  our  rule  ? In  the  same  way  the  soldier  longs  for  native  rule.  He 
• is  not  fit  or  inclined  for  our  service.  His  trade  is  gone  ; he  is  too  old  or 
lazy  to  learn  a new  one.  Crowds  of  irregular  horse  and  footmen  are 
thrown  out  of  employment  and  swell  the  number  of  the  discontented. 
Even  the  men  of  the  pen  complain.  The  large  fortunes  which  they  ac- 
cumulated under  the  native  system  are  not  to  be  had  under  ours.  The 
collector  of  a district,  the  clerk  of  an  office  of  account,  who,  under  us, 
will,  by  steady  conduct  and  hard  work,  rise  from  twenty  to  two  hundred 
rupees  a month,  will,  in  the  Punjab,  if  he  is  a clever  fellow,  accumulate 
lacs.  Imamuddin,  now  the  rebel  Governor  of  Kashmere,  whose  father 
began  with  nothing,  has  in  the  course  of  ten  years  accumulated  a crore 
of  rupees.  . . . Even  those  who  benefit  most  under  our  rule  are  seldom 
satisfied.  They  forget  the  evils  of  days  which  have  gone  by,  and  only 
feel  the  petty  annoyances  of  those  now  passing.  Merchants  and  bank- 
ers who,  under  our  rule,  make  rapid  fortunes  and  may  be  said  to  live 
and  flourish  untaxed,  are  often  loud  in  their  complaints  on  the  most 
trivial  and  even  unreasonable  subjects.  I mention  this,  lest  we  may  be 
led  away  by  the  feeling  which  certainly,  so  far  as  I can  judge,  generally 
exists  among  most  classes  in  the  Punjab  in  favour  of  our  assuming  the 
sovereignty  of  the  country. 

Day  by  day  John  Lawrence  was  in  the  habit  of  receiving 
visits  from  the  leading  Sirdars — each  one  of  them  at  deadly 
feud  with  the  Regent  and  with  most  of  his  brother  Sirdars,  and 
each  having  selfish  views  of  his  own  to  serve  ; and  from  these 
interviews,  using  the  powers  of  discernment  which  long  inter- 
course with  the  natives  in  the  Delhi  district  had  given  him,  he 
managed  to  pick  up  a complete  knowledge  of  all  the  twists  and 
turns  of  the  tortuous  policy  of  the  Lahore  Government,  and 
of  all  the  conflicting  interests  which  were  represented  in  the 
Durbar.  He  met  duplicity,  not  by  counter-duplicity,  but,  as 
he  invariably  did,  by  the  most  absolute  straightforwardness, 
and  then,  as  ever  in  our  dealings  with  the  natives  of  India, 
from  the  ill-omened  negotiations  of  Clive  with  Omichund,  down 
to  those  of  Lord  Lytton  with  Shere  Ali,  it  has  been  straightfor- 
wardness and  not  duplicity,  statesmanship  and  not  diplomacy, 
which,  wherever  it  has  been  employed,  has  turned  out  to  be 
the  best  policy  in  the  end. 

John  Lawrence’s  letters  to  Government  contain  a gallery  of 
portraits,  drawn  from  the  life,  of  every  leading  Sing  at  Lahore  ; 
and  space  alone  forbids  my  reproducing  them  here.  When  Lai 
Sing,  who  was  the  chief  actor  in  all  the  court  amours,  and 
scandals,  and  intrigues,  came  to  see  John  Lawrence,  he  found, 


1 846—48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


199 


to  his  extreme  surprise,  that  his  host  knew  as  much  about  them 
as  he  did  himself.  It  was  the  story  of  Benhadad  and  Elisha 
over  again.  ‘The  prophet  that  is  in  Israel,’  said  the  servants  of 
the  puzzled  King  of  Syria  to  their  master,  ‘ telleth  the  King  of 
Israel  the  words  that  thou  speakest  in  thy  bedchamber.’  In 
vain  did  the  Regent  question  his  servants  as  to  the  means  by 
which  John  Lawrence  knew  everything  that  was  going  on.  Jan 
Larens  sub  junta  (knows  everything)  had  been  the  spontaneous 
exclamation  of  the  native  of  Paniput  twelve  years  before,  and 
‘Jan  Larens  sub  janta’  was  the  only  explanation  that  could  be 
offered  now  to  their  bewildered  master  by  the  servants  of  the 
palace  at  Lahore. 

A few  short  quotations  from  his  letters  will  illustrate  what  I 
have  said  as  to  his  knowledge  of  all  that  was  going  on  inside 
the  palace  and  outside  of  it.  The  Maharani  had  frequent  quar- 
rels and  frequent  reconciliations  with  Lai  Sing,  her  lover.  ‘ In 
a transport  of  rage,’  at  some  fancied  neglect  of  his, 

she  seized  a jug  of  water  and  sent  it  at  hi^  head.  Old  Mungla,  hearing 
the  row,  and  not  knowing  what  it  might  proceed  from,  gave  the  alarm, 
and  when  the  ladies  of  the  household  rushed  in,  they  saw  the  Raja  es- 
caping across  the  terrace  with  his  broken  head.  He  was  very  melan- 
choly that  day,  and  could  eat  no  food ; they  have,  however,  since  made 
it  all  up.  . . . Yesterday  an  Afghan  stabbed  a woman  of  the  town 

in  some  dispute,  then  a tailor  who  seized  him,  and  then  wounded  him- 
self. He  is  dead  ; the  other  two  are  not  expected  to  live.  . . . The 

Raja  is  more  at  home  at  such  intrigues  than  other  matters  of  public 
weal.  No  one  in  the  Punjab  will  support  him  but  the  Maharani,  and 
she  against  her  better  judgment.  He  rubbed  her  all  over  with  rose- 
water, so  the  ‘Court  Circular’  tells  me,  on  the  day  of  the  Dussehra. 
People  have  an  idea  here  that  the  Raja  is  our  creature.  I have  re- 
peatedly told  them  the  very  words  you  use  in  your  letter — namely,  that 
we  appointed  him  because  the  Rani  selected  him.  I believe  the  Raja  is 
more  afraid  of  me  than  anyone,  and  yet  I feel  I can  do  little.  ...  I 
attended  Bhai  Ram  Sing’s  funeral  yesterday,  accompanying  the  body  to 
the  place  of  cremation.  People  say  he  has  left  fifty  lacs  of  rupees,  a 
large  portion  of  which  was  conveyed  to  Benares  previous  to  hostilities 
breaking  out.  It  is  usual  on  these  occasions  to  wrap  the  body  in  Kash- 
mere  shawls,  which  are  burnt  with  it.  None  of  his  wives  or  heirs  would 
produce  the  necessary  number,  though  it  is  said  the  Bhai  has  left  many 
hundred  ; at  last  the  Raja  gave  three,  Dewan  Moolraj  one,  and  the  fam- 
ily three  old  ones.  So  much  for  accumulating  wealth  at  the  expense  of 
one’s  honour  and  honesty,  that  a man’s  greedy  heirs  may  deny  a trifle  at 
the  funeral ! . . . The  day  Moolraj  took  his  leave  privately,  he  per- 

sonally renewed  the  offer  which  he  made  through  his  vakil.  I told  him 


200 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846—48 


that  Sahibs  never  took  bribes  or  presents.  This  appeared  to  surprise  him  ; 
and  he  asked  me  rather  pointedly  if  none  of  us  did  so.  I said,  ‘ Not  one 
in  a hundred,  and  that  one  is  not  worth  bribing  ; for,  depend  on  it,  he 
has  neither  influence  nor  character.’  He  seemed  puzzled  a good  deal, 
and  told  me  that  he  had  hitherto  had  little  to  do  with  us,  and  that  for 
the  future  he  was  our  fast  friend,  and  ready  to  do  our  bidding. 

The  general  conclusion  arrived  at  by  John  Lawrence,  as  the 
result  of  his  daily  interviews  and  of  his  acute  observation,  was 
not  complimentary  or  reassuring,  but  it  was  true.  ‘ There  is 
not,  in  my  judgment,  the  slightest  trust  to  be  placed  in  any 
person  or  any  party  here.  There  is  an  utter  want  of  truth  and 
honour  in  all  ; every  man  is  ready  to  plot,  to  intrigue,  to  cabal 
against  his  neighbour — there  is  no  oath  and  no  bond  which  they 
will  not  take,  and  take  in  order  to  be  the  better  able  to  deceive.’ 

While  there  were  these  chronic  and  ever-increasing  causes  for 
dissatisfaction  in  the  Punjab  proper,  the  iniquitous  arrange- 
ment by  which  Kashmere  and  its  ill-fated  inhabitants  were  to 
be  transferred  without  their  consent,  as  though  they  were  so 
many  logs  of  wood,  to  Golab  Sing,  a Dogra  Rajpoot,  who  had 
nothing  in  common  with  them,  was  not  running  smoothly,  and 
at  one  time  threatened  to  involve  us  in  serious  military  opera- 
tions. There  was  a feud  of  long  standing  between  Imamuddin, 
the  existing  ruler  of  Kashmere  under  the  Lahore  Durbar,  and 
Golab  Sing,  whom  we  had  practically  bound  ourselves  to  put 
in  his  place.  Willing  to  give  up  so  lucrative  a post  to  no  one, 
least  of  all  to  his  private  foe,  and  secretly  encouraged,  as  we 
discovered  shortly  afterwards,  by  Lai  Sing,  who  had  been  a 
party  to  the  arrangement,  Imamuddin  refused  to  obey  the  orders 
of  the  Durbar,  picked  a quarrel  with  one  of  the  chief  officers 
who  had  been  deputed  to  take  over  the  country,  killed  him,  and 
drove  off  his  troops. 

Incensed  at  the  breach  of  the  treaty,  and  fearing  whercunto 
these  things  might  grow,  Lord  Hardinge,  through  the  medium 
of  John  Lawrence,  called  peremptorily  on  the  Durbar  to  fulfil 
its  obligations  and  drive  out  Imamuddin.  The  Durbar  at  first 
affected  to  disbelieve  the  story.  They  made  excuses,  and  pro- 
crastinated as  best  they  could.  But  John  Lawrence  was  firm, 
and  compelled  them  to  do  what  was  naturally  so  distasteful  to 
them.  ‘Tcj  Sing,’  he  says,  ‘has  been  loth  to  march.  I believe 
lie  is  an  arrant  coward,  and,  but  for  us,  would  not  move  an  inch. 
I went  and  comforted  him,  telling  him  he  would  gain  a great 
name  and  our  favour  with  very  little  trouble.’ 


1S46-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


201 


At  last  seven  thousand  Sikhs  were  collected  together  and 
crossed  the  Ravi  under  John's  own  eye. 

I saw  the  last  corps  crossing  early  this  morning  (October  2).  The 
Sikhs  put  their  men  over  a river  with  greater  facility  than  ours  do.  The 
men  went  readily  enough,  but  I had  to  drive  the  Sirdars  regularly  out  of 
the  city.  The  men  behaved  exceedingly  well.  I had  not  the  slightest 
trouble  with  them.  The  Sirdars  behaved  equally  ill : a more  wretched 
set  of  fellows  I never  saw.  Runjore  Sing  and  one  or  two  others  have  not 
yet  started  ; they  are  looking  out  for  good  omens,  and  I send  a sowar 
twice  a day  to  inquire  whether  they  are  propitious. 

But  the  sight  of  military  movements  roused,  as  always,  John’s 
military  instincts.  The  old  ambition,  repressed  by  his  sister  and 
by  the  force  of  circumstances,  was  still  strong  within  him,  and 
he  threw  out  a feeler  on  the  subject  to  his  friend  Currie. 

October  3. 

If  Government  wish  it,  I should  be  delighted  to  go  up  to  Sealkote,  or 
with  Tej  Sing.  I should  like  nothing  better.  I wish  I had  the  com- 
mand ; I would  soon  settle  our  friend  the  Sheikh.  But  Lord  Hardinge 
may  think  that  soldiering  is  not  my  business,  and  perhaps  I cannot  do 
better  than  stay  here  and  keep  the  Durbar  in  order.  Nothing  will  be 
done  by  them  without  our  constraining  them  to  do  it. 

Meanwhile  John  Lawrence  was  reluctantly  coming  to  the 
conviction  that  the  Sheikh  Imamuddin  was  all  the  time  acting 
under  secret  instructions  from  Lahore  ; and  if  so,  Lai  Sing 
would,  of  course,  do  his  best  to  thwart  the  expedition  and  even 
reverse  its  object.  So  it  was  arranged  that  Henry  Lawrence 
should  return  from  Simla,  and,  accompanying  the  Sikh  army 
with  a small  force  of  his  own,  should  endeavour  to  keep  it  up 
to  the  mark.  Herbert  Edwardes  was  to  do  the  same  with  Go- 
lab  Sing,  who,  as  it  seemed,  was  anxious  to  meet  with  opposition 
that  he  might  have  the  better  excuse  for  plundering  his  new 
subjects.  We  had,  indeed,  little  reason  to . be  proud  of  our 
nominee.  * Well  known  as  he  is,  both  in  Jullundur  and  Lahore,’ 
says  John  Lawrence,  * nobody  has  ever  yet  been  heard  to  say  a 
word  in  his  favour.’ — ‘ He  is  the  worst  native  I have  ever  come 
in  contact  with,’  says  Herbert  Edwardes,  who  was  closeted  with 
him  daily,  * a bad  king,  a miser,  and  a liar.’ — ‘ He  is  avaricious  and 
cruel  by  nature,’  says  a third  witness — who  had  the  best  oppor- 
tunities of  judging — ‘ deliberately  committing  the  most  horrible 
atrocities  for  the  purpose  of  investing  his  name  with  a horror 


202 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


which  shall  keep  down  all  thoughts  of  resistance  to  his  power.’1 
Such  was  the  man  whom,  as  ill  luck  would  have  it,  it  was  our 
business  now  to  place  by  means  of  Sikh  arms,  against  the  wishes 
of  the  Sikhs,  and,  a fortiori , against  the  wishes  of  his  hapless 
subjects  that  were  to  be,  on  the  throne  of  the  loveliest  country 
in  the  world.  And  poor  Henry  Lawrence,  who,  from  the  most 
chivalrous  but  mistaken  of  motives,  had  been  led  into  advoca- 
ting the  arrangement,  often  found  himself  very  hard  put  to  it  to 
defend  ‘his  friend  Golab,’  as  John  humorously  calls  him,  from 
the  candid  criticisms  of  his  best  friends,  and  from  the  scruples 
of  his  own  conscience.  It  was  an  unpalatable  business  enough, 
and  the  only  consolation  was  that  the  Sheikh  whom  he  was  to 
displace  was  little  better  : ‘ ambition,  pride,  cruelty,  and  in- 
trigue, strangely  mixed  up  with  indolence,  effeminacy,  volup- 
tuousness, and  timidity  ’ — these  were  the  chief  characteristics, 
as  drawn  by  one  who  knew  hifn  well,  of  Imamuddin.  There 
was  little  indeed  to  choose  between  them.  ‘If  Golab  Sing 
flayed  a chief  alive,’  says  John  Lawrence,  ‘ Imamuddin  boiled  a 
Pundit  to  death  : they  are  certainly  a pair  of  amiables.’ 

The  expedition,  when  it  was  once  fairly  launched  under 
Henry  Lawrence’s  guidance,  went  well  enough.  He  knew  that 
there  was  treachery  rampant  behind  him  at  Lahore,  and  that  it 
was  lurking  among  the  troops  who  accompanied  him.  But  a 
whisper  in  the  ear  of  Lai  Sing’s  vakil  that  if  aught  happened 
to  him,  his  brother  John,  whose  force  of  character  Lai  knew 
too  well,  would  immediately  occupy  the  fort,  put  Lai  Sing  him- 
self into  confinement,  and  seize  the  person  of  the  young  Maha- 
raja, removed  all  danger  from  that  quarter.  Henry  Lawrence’s 
own  force  of  will  and  energy  did  the  rest.  Imamuddin  surren- 
dered at  the  very  moment  when  the  Sikh  troops  who  had  been 
sent  against  him  were  debating  whether  they  should  not  go 
over  to  his  side,  and  all  parties  returned  amicably  to  Lahore, 
where  the  Sheikh,  who  had  not  presented  any  balance-sheet  for 
years,  was  to  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship,  to  pay  up  and 
disband  his  troops,  and  to  justify  his  hostile  acts.  Willing  to 
act  on  Lai  Sing’s  instructions  while  it  suited  his  own  purposes 
to  do  so,  Imamuddin  had  no  intention  of  suffering  for  him  in 
silence,  and  on  the  way  down  to  Lahore  he  produced  the  secret 
orders  on  which  he  had  all  along  been  acting. 

The  real  offender,  the  Regent  Lai  Sing,  was  now,  on  Decem- 


1 Quoted  by  Edwin  Arnold  in  his  Administration  0/ Lord Dalhousie,  vol.  i.  p.  33. 


1846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


203 


ber  2,  brought  to  trial  before  his  own  ministers  and  the  leading 
Sirdars,  in  the  presence  of  five  British  Commissioners — Sir 
Frederick  Currie,  Sir  John  Littler,  Colonel  Goldie,  and  the  two 
Lawrences.  It  was  a great  state  trial,  striking  enough  in  its 
antecedents,  its  surroundings,  and  its  results.  The  production 
in  court  of  the  papers  signed  by  Lai  Sing  himself,  his  lame  de- 
nials, his  condemnation  by  his  own  ministers,  his  solemn  depo- 
sition, the  outburst  of  grief  on  the  part  of  the  Maharani  when 
she  learned  that  she  was  to  part  for  ever  not  only  with  her  viz- 
ier but  her  lover,  the  departure  of  Lai  Sing  as  a prisoner  from 
the  tent  which  he  had  entered  as  a prince,  and  his  removal, 
without  a drop  of  bloodshed  or  a symptom  of  a riot,  from  the 
Sikh  capital  to  the  British  frontier  station  of  Fcrozepore, — 
these  were  some  of  the  sensational  incidents  in  the  trial. 

But  the  consequences  were  even  more  remarkable.  For  the 
council  of  eight  Sirdars  who  assumed  the  government  in  Lai 
Sing’s  place,  when  they  found  that  we  were  determined  to  leave 
the  country  unless  our  control  was  to  be  complete — in  other 
words,  unless  the  whole  administration  of  the  Punjab  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  supervision  of  the  British  Resident,  who  was  to 
act  through  the  Durbar,  and  when  the  young  Maharaja  came 
of  age  was  to  restore  to  it  its  absolute  independence — the  whole 
body  of  Sirdars  and  ‘pillars  of  the  state,’ fifty-one  in  number, 
came  and,  without  one  dissentient  voice,  implored  us  to  remain 
on  our  own  terms.  And  thus,  by  the  treaty  of  Byrowal,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  wishes  of  the  chiefs  themselves,  and  the  as- 
sent, however  grudgingly  given,  of  the  Queen-mother,  Henry 
Lawrence  found  himself  installed  for  eight  years  the  supreme 
ruler  of  the  Punjab. 

The  new  arrangement  gave  him  something  like  free  scope 
for  his  energy  and  philanthropy.  Hitherto  he  had  been  bound 
hand  and  foot,  and  could  only  offer  advice  to  those  who  had 
stopped  their  ears,  or  could  do  so  if  the  advice  given  was  un- 
pleasant. Henceforward  he  was  invested  by  treaty  ‘with  an 
unlimited  authority  ’ in  every  department  of  the  state,  and  he 
forthwith  drew  around  him  a band  of  assistants  who  were  united 
to  him  by  bonds  of  personal  attachment  and  sympathy,  the  like 
to  which  has  never  been  seen  in  India.  The  names  of  George 
Lawrence,  Herbert  Edwardes,  John  Nicholson,  Edward  Lake, 
James  Abbott,  Arthur  Cocks,  Lewin  Bowring,  Harry  Lumsden, 
Reynell  Taylor,  George  Macgregor,  Richard  Pollock,  and  John 
Becher,  have  every  one  of  them  become  more  or  less  historical, 


204 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


and  most  of  them  will  occur  repeatedly  in  the  course  of  this 
biography.  They  worked  now  with  a will  under  Henry  Law- 
rence to  remedy  the  worst  abuses  of  the  Sikh  administration, 
in  the  generous  hope  that  the  last  extremity  of  annexation 
might  be  avoided.  They  worked  with  equal  devotion  when 
that  annexation  had  become  an  accomplished  fact,  and  when 
their  beloved  chief  had  become  the  head  of  the  Punjab  Board 
of  Administration.  When  the  Board  was  broken  up,  recruited 
by  a goodly  number  of  men  who  were  almost  as  much  attracted 
by  the  widely  different  gifts  of  the  younger  as  they  themselves 
had  been  by  those  of  the  elder  brother,  they  worked  on  with 
undiminished  zeal  under  John  Lawrence  as  Chief  Commis- 
sioner. When  the  Mutiny  broke  out  they  were  still  to  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder — if  such  a phrase  may  be  used  of  men  who 
were  hundreds  of  miles  apart,  and  who  rarely  looked  upon  a 
white  face — were  to  carry  on  the  administration  of  the  province 
as  if  it  were  in  a time  of  profound  peace,  and  to  furnish  the 
means  of  crushing  the  danger  far  beyond  its  limits.  i\nd,  once 
more,  they  have  ruled  since  then,  in  one  shape  or  another,  in 
the  most  widely  scattered  posts  and  with  the  most  signal  suc- 
cess, nearly  the  whole  of  India. 

The  treaty  of  Byrowal,  which  gave  Henry  Lawrence  so  splen- 
did a position,  enabled  his  brother  John  to  return  at  length  to 
his  proper  charge  in  the  Jullundur  Doab.  Moved  by  affection 
for  his  brother,  and  by  his  public  spirit,  he  had  for  nine  long 
months  cut  himself  off  from  his  wife  and  family,  and  during 
five  of  them — from  August  to  December — had  thrown  himself 
ungrudgingly  into  the  work  at  Lahore.  But  he  had  been  chaf- 
ing under  the  restraints  and  the  hopelessness  of  the  task  im- 
posed upon  him  ; all  the  more  so  because  he  was  conscious  that 
his  assistants  at  Jullundur,  being  new  to  their  work,  could  not, 
with  all  their  zeal,  be  equal  to  duties  which  would  have  taxed 
the  abilities  of  the  most  experienced  heads  in  the  North-West. 

Lahore  is  not  a satisfactory  place  (he  had  written  to  Currie  as  far 
back  as  November  4)  ; I shall  not  be  sorry  when  I am  allowed  to  leave 
it.  Pray  let  me  know  if  I may  return  to  the  Jullundur  when  the  Sheikh 
is  well  in  hand,  and  my  brother  comes  back.  I am  ready  to  do  what 
Government  wants,  but,  personally,  I prefer  my  work  there.  It  is  a 
new  country,  and  my  assistants  need  looking  after ; and  I want  to  put 
my  stamp  on  it,  that  in  after  times  people  may  look  back  and  recall  my 
Raj  with  satisfaction.  No  portion  of  our  Empire  promises  better  than 
it  docs. 


I S46-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


205 


It  was  a bold  wish,  or  rather  a prophecy  : one  of  those  preg- 
nant prophecies  which,  when  uttered  by  such  a man,  tend  to 
bring  about  their  own  fulfilment.  It  was  fulfilled,  not  in  the 
Jullundur  Doab  alone,  where,  within  two  years  of  the  time 
when  the  words  were  written,  John  Lawrence  found  that,  while 
war  was  raging  in  all  other  parts  of  the  Punjab,  he  was  able  to 
preserve  almost  unbroken  peace  ; nor,  again,  in  the  wider  field 
of  the  Punjab  alone,  where  his  name  is  still  the  name  which 
stands  absolutely  by  itself  as  a ruling  power  among  the  natives, 
— but,  in  its  measure  also,  over  the  whole  of  India.  Almost  as 
I write  these  words  (May  21,  1880)  I see  quoted  in  the  ‘Times’ 
the  letters  of  several  Indian  Rajas,  who,  though  they  were  un- 
connected with  any  of  the  provinces  directly  ruled  by  him,  send 
their  contributions  to  the  ‘ Lawrence  Memorial  Fund,’  accom- 
panied by  glowing  tributes  to  his  worth.  One  of  them — the 
Raja  Sheoraj  Sing  of  Kashipore — uses  these  memorable  words  : 
‘ We  have  learned  with  deep  regret  the  lamentable  death  of 
Lord  Lawrence,  the  ablest  and  wisest  of  the  rulers  India  ever 
had.  His  impartial  justice  and  wise  administration  are  so 
deeply  impressed  on  our  hearts  that  they  can  scarcely  be  ef- 
faced. It  must  be  our  duty,  therefore,  to  pay  our  tribute  of 
honour  to  the  memory  of  so  erninent  a statesman,  who  restored 
peace  to  our  country  and  happiness  to  its  people  in  one  of  its 
most  critical  moments,  and  strengthened  the  ties  of  the  union 
of  England  with  India  by  the  display  of  unparalleled  wisdom, 
foresight,  justice,  and  courage.’  Was  ever  the  wish  of  a young 
man  that  he  might  ‘ put  his  stamp  on  the  country,’  and  that  ‘ the 
natives  might  in  after  times  look  back  upon  his  Raj  with  satis- 
faction ’ more  abundantly,  more  triumphantly,  realised  ? 

When  John  Lawrence  got  back  to  Jullundur  he  found  the  set- 
tlement of  the  revenue  actively  progressing  under  the  super- 
vision of  George  Christian,  a young  man  on  whom  he  had  cast 
a covetous  eye  at  Lahore  as  one  capable  of  great  things.  The 
first  notice  of  him  I find  in  the  papers  before  me  is  at  the  time 
when  Imamuddin  had  just  surrendered  and  was  returning  ami- 
cably with  us — too  amicably,  as  Christian  thought — to  Lahore, 
and  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  writer.  ‘ Christian,’  says 
John  Lawrence,  ‘ is  going  about  asking,  “ Is  no  one  to  be 
hanged  ? ” and  seems  melancholy  that  echo  answers,  “ No  one.”  ’ 
And  the  advice  John  Lawrence  gives  him  before  entering  on  his 
settlement  work  is  even  more  characteristic  : ‘ I expect  to  be  in 
Jullundur  by  December  at  the  latest,  but  should  I not,  mind  you 


206 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


assess  low  ; if  you  don’t  I shall  be  your  enemy  for  life  ; and  in- 
deed, what  is  worse,  you  will  be  your  own.  Let  nothing  tempt 
you  to  assess  high.’  George  Barnes,  another  very  able  officer, 
whose  Report  on  Kangra  I have  already  quoted,  was  appointed 
at  the  same  time  to  the  revenue  settlement  in  that  district,  while 
Cust  and  Lake  and  Hercules  Scott  were  rapidly  losing  the  only 
reproach  that  could  fairly  be  levelled  at  them — the  only  re- 
proach which  is  sure  always  to  mend  itself — that  of  youth  and 
inexperience. 

But  John  Lawrence  now  found  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
great  difficulty  which  was  to  meet  him  again  in  the  Punjab — 
the  treatment  of  the  feudatories  of  the  dispossessed  government. 
What  was  the  question,  and  how  did  he  deal  with  it  ? It  will  be 
well  to  make  the  case  as  clear  as  possible  at  once,  and  to  put  it, 
as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  John  Lawrence’s  own  words. 

Most  of  the  land  in  the  Jullundur  Doab,  as  in  other  parts  of 
the  Punjab,  was  held  by  jagheerdars,  or  feudatories,  of  the 
Sikh  conquerors  who  had  ousted  the  Mogul.  The  whole  terri- 
tory had  been  ceded  by  the  treaty  of  Umritsur  to  the'  British 
Government,  and  it  was  within  our  right  as  conquerors,  due  re- 
gard being  had  to  justice  and  policy,  to  deal  with  it  as  we 
thought  best.  It  was,  of  course,  necessary  that  the  province 
should  pay  the  cost  of  its  occupation  and  management,  and  the 
question  now  was  how  this  end  could  be  best  secured.  It  was 
impossible  to  increase  the  land  tax,  the  great  source  of  revenue 
in  India,  for  its  incidence  was  already  too  heavy  for  the  scanty 
means  of  the  masses.  In  fact,  we  had  already  largely  reduced 
it.  There  seemed  therefore  to  be  only  one  course  open  to  us,  and 
that  was  to  reduce  the  holdings  of  the  feudatories.  Most  of 
them  had  held  their  fiefs  on  condition  of  military  or  general,  or, 
sometimes,  of  religious,  service.  All  need  for  such  arrangements 
had  now  gone  by,  and  John  Lawrence  used  to  reply  with  some- 
what brusque  frankness  to  petitions  which  pleaded  for  the  re- 
tention of  their  privileges  : ‘ We  want  neither  your  soldiers  nor 
your  prayers,  and  cannot  afford  to  pay  you  for  them.’  Accord- 
ingly, all  these  services  were  commuted  into  a money  payment  ; 
the  fiefs  were  proportionately  reduced  and  the  remainder  main- 
tained— the  older  grants  in  perpetuity  to  male  heirs,  the  more 
recent  grants  for  the  lives  of  the  parties  who  were  in  possession. 

Some  hardship  was  undoubtedly  inflicted  and  some  ill-feeling 
generated  by  these  measures,  and  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that 
it  was  so.  But  it  is  equally  certain  that  there  was  nothing  es- 


I 846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


20  7 


sentially  unjust  in  them,  still  less  anything  unjust  according  to 
native  ideas.  No  native  dynasty  ever  succeeded  another  with- 
out making  short  work  of  its  predecessor’s  grants.  Above  all, 
it  is  clear  that  the  change  was  absolutely  necessary  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  masses.  The  country — and  by  the  country  it  must 
always  be  remembered  I mean  the  whole  bulk  of  its  population, 
each  one  of  whom,  if  you  prick  him,  must  needs  bleed — could 
not  afford  to  pay  for  two  systems  of  government — one  our  own, 
based  on  regular  establishments  and  money  payments  ; the  other 
based  on  feudal  service  supported  by  large  territorial  possessions. 
All  these  feudatories,  although  many  of  them  were  actually  hold- 
ing fiefs  on  our  side  of  the  Sutlej  and  were  under  our  protection, 
had  joined  the  Sikh  army  when  it  invaded  our  territory  in  quest 
of  new  acquisitions.  If  it  was  fair  to  deprive  the  Punjab  Gov- 
ernment of  a large  tract  of  country,  for  having  invaded  British 
territory  ; it  was  equally  fair  that  its  feudatories  should  bear 
their  share  of  the  consequences.  Our  mode  of  dealing  with 
them  was  certainly  more  liberal  than  any  which  they  themselves 
would  have  meted  out  to  a people  whom  they  had  conquered. 
In  particular,  it  was  much  more  liberal  than  that  with  which 
Runjeet  Sing  himself  had  treated  the  chiefs  of  the  Punjab  plains 
whom  he  had  subdued.  In  any  case,  our  measures  were  justified 
by  success.  The  great  feudatories  submitted,  as  a body,  to  their 
altered  circumstances,  without  opposition  and  with  a good  grace, 
and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  though  treated  with  less  indul- 
gence than  the  chiefs  of  the  adjoining  hills,  and  though  urged  by 
them  to  rise  against  us  in  the  second  Sikh  war,  with  one  single 
exception,  they  all  refused  to  do  so.  And  this  one  exception 
only  served  to  prove  the  rule,  for  it  was  that  of  the  Bedi  Bik- 
rama  Sing,  the  high  priest  of  the  Sikhs  and  the  special  patron 
of  female  infanticide  ! 

But  as  this  matter  is  important,  and  as  the  difference  of 
opinion  upon  it  between  the  elder  and  the  younger  brother 
was  ultimately  to  become  so  vital,  Jqhn  Lawrence  shall  put  his 
case  in  his  own  words.  Here  is  a letter  to  Sir  Frederick  Currie, 
dated  October  17,  1846,  which  indicates  his  view  in  a narrow 
compass  : — 

I am  anxious  for  your  opinion  on  the  following  point.  There  are  some 
five  hundred  villages  in  the  Jullundur,  worth  about  five  laics  of  rupees, 
which  were  conquered  by  different  Sikh  chiefs  seventy  or  eighty  years 
ago.  In  some  cases  three  or  four,  or  even  more,  villages  are  held  by 
one  or  two  persons ; in  others,  there  are  from  five  to  thirty  and  forty 


208 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


shareholders.  I propose  to  recommend  to  Government  that  the  posses- 
sion in  all  these  cases  be  affirmed  merely  for  life,  and  the  shares  lapse 
to  Government  on  the  demise  of  each  occupant.  My  brother  thinks  we 
ought  to  maintain  them  for  ever,  subject  to  a certain  payment.  What 
do  you  say  ? These  are  not  private  properties,  but  alienations  of  the 
Government  rights.  They  won  them  by  the  strong  hand ; they  have 
now  forfeited  them  by  the  same  law  by  which  they  held  them,  namely, 
that  of  the  sword.  Why  should  we  give  up  the  Government  right?  I 
see  no  policy  in  so  doing ; politically  these  people  will  never  support  us, 
and  to  the  country  they  are  a perfect  incubus.  Why  not  let  them  gradu- 
ally fall  in,  and  let  the  descendants  of  these  conquerors  return  to  the 
plough  whence  their  fathers  came  ? What  increases  the  difficulty  is, 
that  by  the  Hindu  law  of  inheritance  these  lands  will  be  divided  into 
infinitesimal  portions  gradually,  and  as  the  occupants  arc  not  proprie- 
tors, they  will  not  become  petty  yeomen  cultivating  their  own  lands,  but 
beggarly  gentlemen,  too  proud  to  work  and  unwilling  to  starve.  You 
cannot  remedy  this  by  entailing  the  property  on  the  eldest  son,  for  in 
that  case  where  you  please  one  you  put  up  the  backs  of  ten,  besides  go- 
ing against  custom  and  precedent.  Runjeet  Sing  was  gradually  getting 
rid  of  all  these  feudal  lords.  If  you  think  that  the  heirs  have  rights,  why 
not  allow  them  so  many  years’  purchase  for  their  rights  directly  the  di- 
vision comes  below  one  village  ? 

Hard  as  was  John  Lawrence’s  work  in  the  Trans-Sutlej  States, 
he  by  no  means  wished  to  lessen  it ; and,  hearing  that  it  was 
proposed  by  Government  to  lessen  that  of  his  brother  Commis- 
sioner, Colonel  Mackeson,  in  the  Cis-Sutlej  States,  by  appoint- 
ing a sessions  judge,  who  would  take  the  civil  cases  off  his 
hands,  he  wrote  to  Elliot,  Secretary  to  Government,  protest- 
ing vigorously  against  a project — the  separation  of  the  civil 
from  the  revenue  work — which  he  believed  to  be  fraught  with 
serious  consequences  to  India. 

I want  no  such  personage  as  a sessions  judge  here.  I have  not  a bit 
too  much  work,  though  I have  plenty  of  it.  I have  a great  objection 
to  the  civil  and  revenue  work  being  separated.  A regular  civil  court 
plays  the  very  devil.  Its  course  of  procedure  is  ruinous  to  the  tenures 
of  the  country,  for  the  agriculturists  cannot  fight  their  causes  in  that 
court.  It  is  ruining  the  people  in  the  North-West  Provinces,  and  will 
do  the  same  wherever  it  is  introduced.  We  are  getting  on  capitally 
here.  This,  I think,  will  prove  the  pattern  district  of  the  North-West, 
and  will  pay  Government  famously  if  you  do  not  let  off  too  many 
jagheers. 

In  July,  1847,  John  Lawrence  came  down  to  Jnllundur  to  hold 
these  same  sessions  and  appeal  courts,  and  it  was  while  he  was 


IS46-4S 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


209 


engaged  in  this  work,  in  a building  which  lay  at  some  distance 
from  the  city  and  treasury,  that  a ‘cow  riot’  occurred,  which 
must  have  brought  vividly  back  to  his  mind  one  of  the  most 
striking  incidents  of  his  early  career.  The  Hindus,  who,  under 
Sikh  rule,  had  been  accustomed  to  a system  of  strict  protection 
for  their  sacred  animal,  came  in  great  numbers  to  the  court- 
house in  which  Hercules  Scott,  the  Assistant-Commissioner,  was 
presiding,  to  protest  against  the  orders  which  had  recently  been 
issued  allowing  cows  to  be  slaughtered  for  food.  Scott  refused 
to  interfere,  whereupon  some  fifteen  hundred  of  them  rushed 
excitedly  to  the  Commissioner’s  court,  surrounded  the  house, 
and,  when  John  Lawrence  told  them  that  the  order  was  the 
Governor-General’s  and  could  not  be  rescinded,  they  broke  out 
into  open  violence.  His  servants  were  attacked  and  beaten, 
fifteen  mounted  sowars  who  attempted  to  disperse  them  were 
pulled  off  their  horses,  and  John  Lawrence  himself,  on  coming 
out,  was  pelted  with  stones.  He  ordered  up  a company  of  se- 
poys from  the  civil  treasury,  and  their  soubadar,  seeing  a dense 
and  excited  mob  gathered  around  the  house,  while  the  troopers 
were  being  mauled  and  the  lives  of  the  Europeans  were  in  dan- 
ger, halted  his  men  and  gave  the  order  to  ‘ fix  bagnets  ! ’ The 
sound  was  too  much  for  the  malcontents.  They  broke  and  fled, 
and  the  danger  was  over.  In  revenge,  to  make  the  parallel 
with  John  Lawrence’s  earlier  experience  more  complete,  they 
closed  all  the  shops  in  the  bazaar  and  suspended  business  for 
some  weeks.  But  no  further  harm  came  of  it,  nor  was  it  ne- 
cessary here  for  John  Lawrence,  as  he  had  done  on  the  previous 
occasion,  to  act  the  part  of  purveyor-general. 

The  time  passed  away  pleasantly  enough  with  John  Law- 
rence, as  he  saw  his  work  in  the  Jullundur  Doab  growing  under 
his  hand.  But  in  August  he  was  obliged  to  leave  it  again  and 
go  on  the  same  thankless  errand  to  Lahore.  The  strain  of  the 
work  in  the  Punjab,  with  the  full  powers  which  now  belonged 
to  him,  had  been  too  much  for  the  ever  active,  yet  long  since 
overwrought,  frame  of  Henry  Lawrence.  Supported  by  his 
able  assistants,  and  stimulated  by  the  field  for  usefulness  which 
the  new  powers  committed  to  him  had  seemed  to  open  up,  he 
had  thrown  himself  during  the  last  seven  months — three  of 
them  the  hottest  in  the  year — with  headlong  ardour  into  his 
work.  To  reduce  the  overgrown  army,  which  before  the  Sutlej 
campaign  had  been  85,000  strong,  to  the  moderate  number  of 
some  20,000  ; to  secure  for  the  discharged  soldiers  their  arrears 
Vol.  I.— 14 


210 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


of  pay  and  induce  them  to  return  to  peaceful  avocations  ; to 
subject  those  who  remained  to  strict  discipline  and  yet,  by 
paying  them  punctually,  to  make  them  contented  with  their  lot; 
to  strike  off  the  most  obnoxious  taxes,  and  moderate  and  equal- 
ise those  which  were  retained ; to  compel  the  tax-gatherers  of 
the  Khalsa,  the  ‘ official  locusts  ’ of  the  land,  to  disgorge  their 
ill-gotten  gains,  and  to  ensure  that  the  money  paid  in  to  them 
in  future  should  reach  the  public  treasury  ; to  introduce  a very 
simple  penal  code  which  should  be  adapted  to  the  wants  and 
to  the  intelligence  of  the  people, — these  were  some  of  the  ob- 
jects which  Henry  Lawrence  put  before  himself,  and  which  he 
had  already  done  something  towards  securing.  In  order  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  code,  he  had  summoned  to  Lahore,  just 
before  his  health  gave  way,  fifty  Sikh  heads  of  villages,  who, 
after  sitting  there  in  solemn  conclave  for  some  months,  were  to 
reduce  the  unwritten  customs  and  morals  of  the  people  to  a 
written  law,  which  was  at  once  to  reform  and  perpetuate  them.1 

The  ‘ unlimited  authority  ’ given  to  Henry  Lawrence  by 
treaty,  of  course  he  had  found,  in  practice,  to  be  limited  enough. 
For  it  was  a part  of  the  programme  to  work  as  far  as  possible 
through  the  Durbar,  almost  every  member  of  whom,  as  he 
would  have  himself  admitted,  was  alike  venal  and  selfish,  while 
the  Queen-mother,  who  had,  from  the  first,  chafed  at  the  inter- 
ference of  the  British,  was  not  likely  to  be  more  friendly  now 
that  they  had  torn  away  her  lover  from  her.  This  * Hindu 
Messalina,’  as  Lord  Hardinge  and  Herbert  Edwardes,  justly  or 
unjustly,  called  her,  soon  indeed  consoled  herself  for  the  loss  of 
an  old  favourite,  by  finding  new  ones,  and  it  was  not  long  be- 
fore her  slave  girl,  Mungala,  was  detected  carrying  treasonable 
messages  to  Lai  Sing  and  to  Moolraj,  the  powerful  and  semi- 
independent ruler  of  Mooltan.  At  last  she  put  the  finishing 
stroke  to  her  iniquities  by  managing  to  insult  the  Resident, 
the  Ministers,  and  the  whole  Durbar,  at  once.  It  had  been  ar- 
ranged that  a grand  Durbar  should  be  held  at  which  Tej  Sing, 
the  President  of  the  Council,  was  to  be  installed  as  Raja  of 
Sealkote,  while  sundry  decorations  were  to  be  bestowed  on 
other  deserving  Sirdars.  The  astrologers  were  duly  consulted, 
the  auspicious  day  was  fixed,  and  all  the  chivalry  of  the  mori- 
bund Khalsa  were  assembled  to  take  part  in  the  ceremonial. 
But  when  Tej  Sing  knelt  before  the  youthful  Maharaja  to  re- 


Kaye's  Sketches  of  English  Officers,  vol.  ii.  p.  297. 


1 846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


21  I 

ceive  the  saffron  spot  on  the  forehead  which  was  to  dub  him  a 
Raja,  ‘ the  little  prince  proudly  folded  his  arms  in  token  of  re- 
fusal, and  flung  himself  back  on  his  velvet  chair  with  a tutored 
obstinacy  which  was  not  to  be  shaken.’ 1 

Such  an  insult  was  too  great  to  be  put  up  with,  and  Ilenry 
Lawrence,  knowing  well  that  the  Maharani  had  been  through- 
out intriguing  against  his  authority,  with  the  full  assent  and 
consent  of  the  Durbar,  decreed  the  separation  of  the  boy  King 
from  his  unscrupulous  mother.  She  stormed  and  raved  and 
scratched  in  vain,  and  was  despatched  in  a dhoolie  to  Shikar- 
pore,  twenty  miles  away,  with  no  greater  difficulty  than  Lai 
Sing  had  been  removed  before  her.  Here  she  became  the  focus 
of  ever  fresh  and  more  formidable  intrigues,  and  fresh  measures 
of  precaution  had  to  be  taken  against  her.  About  the  time  of 
the  second  Sikh  war  she  was  transferred  to  Benares,  where, 
having  changed  dress  with  a sempstress,  she  escaped  to  Nepal, 
and  thence,  after  many  vicissitudes,  to  England. 

The  removal  of  the  Queen-mother  from  Lahore  was  one  of 
the  last  acts  of  Henry  Lawrence  as  Resident.  His  health  failed 
him,  and  in  August  he  left  for  Simla,  only  returning  in  Novem- 
ber for  a passing  visit,  on  his  way  to  England.  One  of  the 
most  important  and  very  possibly  the  happiest  chapter  of  his 
life  was  now  closed.  He  had  found  at  Lahore  full  scope  for 
all  his  vigour.  He  had  had  that  variety  and  multiplicity  of 
occupation  and  interests  which  were  as  the  breath  of  life  to  him. 
Of  a sanguine  temperament,  he  was  buoyed  up  by  the  hope  of 
saving  a native  state  whose  history  appealed  to  many  of  his 
finer  sympathies  and  instincts,  and  of  stemming  the  tide  of  an- 
nexation which  was  so  soon  to  swallow  up  so  many  of  the  inde- 
pendent principalities  of  India.  He  had  been  compelled  to 
deal  with  no  burning  questions  of  state  policy,  such  as  were  to 
confront  him  when  he  returned  from  England  to  a post  of  still 
greater  dignity  and  importance,  the  Presidency  of  the  Board  of 
Administration  of  the  province  which,  in  spite  of  all  his  gener- 
ous efforts,  it  had  been  found  necessary  to  annex.  His  work 
had  been  one  of  pure  philanthropy,  in  which  it  was  hardly  pos- 
sible for  honourable  and  intelligent  men  tS  differ  widely.  He 
had  been  surrounded  by  a band  of  assistants,  ‘ every  one  of 
whom  was  his  friend,  and  most  of  whom  had  been  introduced 
into  the  Punjab  by  him,’  and  shared  with  him  all  his  views  and 


1 Arnold’s  Administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  vol.  i.  p.  51. 


212 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i 846— 48 


sympathies.  More  than  this,  he  had  had  the  help,  whenever 
it  was  required,  of  his  brother  John,  a man  whose  arm  was 
as  strong  as  his  mind  was  massive  and  methodical  and  his 
spirit  willing  and  self-sacrificing.  ‘Each of  my  assistants,’  says 
Henry  Lawrence,  ‘was  a good  man.  The  most  were  excellent 
officers.  My  chief  help,  however,  was  in  my  brother  John,  with- 
out whom  I must  have  had  difficulty  in  carrying  on.  On  three 
different  occasions  during  my  temporary  absence  he  took  charge 
for  me.  . . . In  various  ways  he  was  most  useful,  and  gave 

me  always  such  help  as  only  a brother  could.' 

This  is  an  acknowledgment  as  frank  as  it  is  generous  ; and 
it  is  well  to  call  pointed  attention  to  it,  for  some  of  the  more 
thorough-going  partisans  of  Henry — and  no  man  ever  had 
the  gift  of  binding  his  followers  to  him  by  ties  of  more  enthusi- 
astic loyalty,  and  so,  as  it  were,  of  forcing  them  to  be  thorough- 
going partisans,  than  he — have  complained  that  John,  in  his 
successful  administration  of  the  Punjab,  reaped  the  fruits  of 
that  which  he  had  had  little  share  in  sowing.  Such  was  cer- 
tainly, as  this  letter  shows,  not  the  opinion  of  Henry  Lawrence 
himself. 

Compared  with  such  thorough-going  partisans,  it  has  been 
said  with  equal  wit  and  truth  that  John  was  a staunch  Henry-ite, 
and  Henry  a staunch  John-ite.  The  disciples  have  gone  far 
beyond  the  master,  as  there  have  been  Lutherans  who  have 
gone  far  beyond  Luther,  and  as  the  Paulicians  have  gone  far 
beyond  and  stultified  St.  Paul.  In  the  matter  of  time  alone,  out 
of  the  period  of  some  two  years  which  elapsed  between  the 
treaty  of  Umritsur  in  March,  1846,  and  the  outbreak  at  Mool- 
tan,  in  April,  1848,  it  should  be  remarked  that,  while  Henry  was 
residing  at  Lahore  for  some  ten  months  only,  John  was  resid- 
ing there  and  officiating  for  him  for  not  less  than  fourteen  ; 
while,  as  regards  the  work  which  he  managed  to  get  through, 
the  letters  which  I have  already  quoted  will  give  sufficient  evi- 
dence. The  two  brothers,  it  is  true  enough,  differed  from  each 
other,  as  men  of  such  different  temperaments  are  sure  to  do,  on 
one  or  two  important  and  upon  several  minor  matters  of  policy; 
but  they  were  in  no  sense  rivals,  in  no  sense  jealous  of  each 
other.  Neither  of  them  ever  tried  to  steal  a march  upon  the 
other.  They  were  fairly  matched  in  energy,  in  ability,  and  in 
self-devotion  ; and  those  who  would  detract  from  the  one  in 
order  to  exalt  the  other  would  do  what  would  have  been  equally 
distasteful  to  both. 


1846-48 


ACTING-RESIDENT  AT  LAHORE. 


213 


Finally,  that  we  may  estimate  aright  the  happiness  of  Henry 
during  this  as  compared  with  the  next  and  better-known  period 
in  his  life,  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  had  been  working 
as  Resident  under  a chief  who  was  thoroughly  congenial  to 
him,  a chief  as  chivalrous,  as  high-minded,  and  as  philanthropic 
as  he  was  himself,  one  who  wrote  to  him  and  to  whom  he  wrote 
— as  a large  budget  of  correspondence  in  my  hands  shows — 
with  all  the  freedom  and  affection  of  a brother.  When  he  re- 
turned, things  were  to  be  widely  different.  For  Lord  Dal- 
housie  and  he  were  to  be  as  antagonistic  to  each  other  as  two 
great  and  high-principled  men  could  well  be.  The  one  was  to 
jar  upon  the  other  to  an  extent  which  was  to  be  fatal  to  the 
peace  of  mind  of  the  more  sensitive  and  delicate  nature.  What 
Henry  Lawrence  thought  of  Lord  Ilardinge  has  been  put  on 
record  by  Henry  Lawrence  himself  in  an  elaborate  essay  on  his 
administration,  and  is  preserved  in  the  edition  of  his  collected 
essays.  What  Lord  Hardinge  thought  of  Henry  Lawrence  is 
evident  from  the  feeling  which  was  pretty  general  throughout 
India,  that  the  Governor-General  was  too  much  under  his  influ- 
ence. It  was  remarked  that  he  had  planted  a ‘ triumvirate  of 
Lawrences'  beyond  the  frontiers  of  British  India,  and  was  pretty 
much  ruled  by  one  of  them  within  them.  Lord  Hardinge 
pressed  his  friend  to  accompany  him  to  England,  and,  while  on 
his  way  thither,  wrote  thus,  on  his  behalf,  to  Sir  John  Hob- 
house,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Control : — 

My  dear  Sir  John, — I am  anxious  to  say  a few  words  to  you  on  a sub- 
ject which  you  formerly  received  with  favour.  I allude  to  the  distinction 
of  K.C.B.  for  Colonel  Lawrence.  I have  no  objects  to  urge  as  regards 
myself,  and  his  claims  are  so  strong  and  so  just  that,  even  if  I had,  I 
should  wish  his  to  take  the  precedence.  I should  be  most  happy  if,  on 
his  return  to  England,  he  could  be  rewarded  by  this  mark  of  Her  Majes- 
ty’s favour.  Since  the  war  closed,  early  in  1846,  his  labours  have  been 
incessant  and  most  successful.  His  personal  energies,  his  moral  force  of 
character,  were  admirably  displayed  by  leading  the  Sikh  forces  into  the 
Kashmere  passes  in  the  autumn  of  1846— a force  scarcely  recovered  from 
mutiny  to  their  own  government  and  hostility  to  us  ; and  he  has,  since 
the  treaty,  as  you  know,  administered  the  government  of  the  Punjab 
with  great  ability  and  complete  success.  This  is  the  last  act  of  conscien- 
tious duty  towards  a most  deserving  office^ ; and  there  is  no  one  of  the 
many  officers  whom  I have  left  behind  me  in  India  who  has  such  good 
pretensions  to  the  favour  of  Government  as  my  good  friend  Colonel  Law- 
rence, and  there  is  nothing  which  you  can  do  for  me  which  will  give  me 
more  pleasure  than  to  see  him  honoured  as  he  deserves. 


214 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1846-48 


This  appeal,  it  need  scarcely  be  added,  was  favourably  listened 
to,  and  within  a month  of  his  landing  in  England  Henry  Law- 
rence received,  amidst  general  acclamation,  the  distinction  he 
had  so  well  earned,  and  which  his  kind  friend  Hudleston  had 
prognosticated  for  him  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  Indian 
career,  when  he  told  his  sister  that  ‘ all  her  brothers  would  be 
sure  to  do  well,  but  as  for  Henry,  he  would  be  Sir  Henry  Law- 
rence before  he  died.’ 


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CHAPTER  X. 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR.  1848. 

The  second  prolonged  residence  of  John  Lawrence,  while  acting 
for  his  brother  at  Lahore,  may  be  dismissed  with  greater  brevity 
than  the  first ; for  the  picture  which  I have  endeavoured  to  draw 
of  the  one  may,  muta/is  mutandis , to  a great  extent,  serve  for 
the  other  also.  The  banishment  of  Lai  Sing  and  of  the  Oueen- 
mother  had  removed  some  of  the  chief  causes  of  anxiety.  But 
the  more  chronic  difficulties,  the  venality  and  the  selfishness, 
the  intrigues  and  the  empty  exchequer  of  the  Sirdars,  through 
whom  the  Resident  was  bound  to  work,  were  the  same  as  ever. 
They  offered  a passive  resistance  to  the  possibly  over-active  ef- 
forts which  were  made  to  improve  them  in  European  fashion  ; 
and  it  was  more  difficult  for  a man  of  John  Lawrence’s  temper- 
ament to  submit  with  equanimity  to  such  passive  resistance  than 
to  any  amount  of  active  opposition.  He  found,  no  doubt,  in 
the  full  powers  conferred  on  him  by  treaty,  a wider  field  of  use- 
fulness than  had  been  open  to  him  before  ; and  of  these,  with 
the  help  of  his  brother’s  assistants  who  traversed  the  country, 
making  a summary  assessment  and  endeavouring  to  eradicate 
the  three  great  social  evils  of  suttee,  female  infanticide,  and 
slaverj',  he  availed  himself  to  the  full.  The  security  with  which 
these  young  Englishmen  rode  about,  quite  alone,  on  their  er- 
rands of  mercy,  seems  strange  enough  when  we  recollect  the 
frequent  revolutions  which  had  taken  place  since  the  death  of 
Runjeet  Sing. 

But,  notwithstanding  these  encouragements,  there  were  cir- 
cumstances attending  John  Lawrence's  second  residence  at  La- 
hore which  rendered  it  even  more  distasteful  to  him  than  his 
former  one.  He  was  asked  to  hold  the  post,  not  directly  for  his 
brother,  as  Henry  Lawrence  had  himself  desired,  but  for  Fred- 
erick Currie,  who,  at  some  future  time  not  named,  was  to  step 
in  and  take  it  out  of  his  hands.  Currie  had  already  been  pro- 
vided with  a seat  in  Council  at  Calcutta  ; he  knew  little  of  the 


2 1 6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


Punjab,  while  Lawrence  knew  it  well  ; the  Sirdars  themselves, 
moreover,  who  had,  at  first,  been  somewhat  nettled  by  the 
home  thrusts  and  blunt  directness  of  John,  had  now  come  to 
appreciate  the  ready  humour,  the  unrestrained  intercourse,  and 
the  kindly  heart  which  accompanied  and  set  them  off.  ‘ The 
Durbar,’  he  writes  to  his  brother,  * are  very  melancholy  about 
my  going  away.  Old  Tej  Sing  asked  me  if  he  could  not  get  a 
year’s  leave  ; even  Dena  Nath  does  not  like  the  change  ; and  I 
am  sure  I can  be  no  favourite  of  his.  Yesterday,  while  talking 
to  me,  he  said  that  things  would  never  go  on.  “ With  you,”  he 
said,  “we  can  talk  and  badger  and  dispute,  you  are  one  of  our 
own  ; but  what  can  we  do  with  Currie  Sahib  ? ” ’ That  which 
made  the  arrangement  proposed  by  Lord  Hardinge  all  the  more 
unaccountable  was  that  Currie  himself  did  not  like  it,  and 
thought  that  he  was  coming  down  merely  ‘ to  oblige  the  Law- 
rences.’ There  was  some  soreness  on  both  sides  ; but  any  lin- 
gering feeling  of  the  kind  in  the  breast  of  John  must  have  been 
removed  by  the  cordiality  of  their  meeting  when  at  last  Currie 
arrived,  and  by  the  letter  written  to  him  by  Lord  Hardinge  just 
before  he  set  out  for  England  : — 


Off  the  Sandheads  : January  20,  1848. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — Our  pilot  leaves  in  an  hour,  and  this  my  last  let- 
ter from  the  shores  of  Bengal  is  written  to  express  to  you  the  gratification 
which  I feel  that  you  and  your  brothers,  Henry  and  George  Lawrence, 
have  so  greatly  exceeded  all  the  expectations  I had  formed  originally  of 
your  abilities  and  judgment.  I have  acknowledged  my  sense  of  your  val- 
uable services  before  I relinquished  office,  and  I have  recommended  that 
you  should  be  employed  either  in  Kashmere  this  year,  or  Oudh  the  next, 
or  at  Lahore,  in  the  event  of  Currie’s  returning  to  Calcutta  before  your 
brother’s  health  enables  him  to  resume  the  government  of  the  Punjab. 
I mention  these  points,  of  which  your  brother  has  probably  apprised  you  ; 
for  the  decisions  in  the  Lahore  arrangements,  apparently  adverse  to  your 
interests,  have  been  made  to  accomplish  more  objects  than  those  which 
meet  the  eye.  . . . Your  brother  is  assuredly  much  better  than  he 
was  last  year  in  the  cold  season  at  Lahore.  If  any  military  vacancy 
should  occur  in  the  Council,  I think  not  merely  that  he  ought,  but  that 
he  will  be  the  successor  to  Littler,  and  his  presence  in  London  will  for- 
ward all  these  just  objects  of  well-merited  ambition.  He  only  wants 
health  to  be  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  and  I don’t  think  there  is  anything 
organically  wrong. 

Ever,  my  dear  Lawrence, 

Yours  sincerely, 

Hardinge. 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


217 


But  I am  anticipating.  Soon  after  the  arrival  of  John  Law- 
rence, in  the  previous  autumn,  at  Lahore,  the  Council  of  Sikh 
chiefs,  with  its  President,  the  Dewan  Dena  Nath,  at  their  head, 
came  to  him  and,  premising  that  Lord  Hardinge  was  a ‘real 
father’  to  the  Maharaja  and  to  the  State  generally,  asked  him 
with  true  filial  confidence  to  remit  the  whole  sum  of  money 
which  they  had  agreed  to  pay  towards  the  expenses  of  the 
British  occupation  ! They  could  give  us  no  money,  they  said, 
for  there  was  none  to  give.  John  replied  bluntly  that  this 
would  not  do  ; that  the  revenue,  if  applied  with  justice  and 
economy,  was  ample  to  meet  all  demands  on  the  State  ; and, 
going  straight  to  the  root  of  the  matter  with  the  directness 
which  was  characteristic  of  him,  he  wrote  to  his  brother  pro- 
posing that,  with  a view  to  ward  off  financial  ruin,  the  kardars, 
or  tax-gatherers,  should  be  obliged  by  the  Resident  to  give  in 
their  accounts  punctually,  and,  what  was  more  important  still, 
that,  without  the  Resident’s  signature,  there  should  be  no  ex- 
penditure of  money  at  all. 

I know  that  you  are  anxious  to  work  through  the  Council  themselves 
as  much  as  possible,  and  no  doubt  this  is  a right  principle  if  it  can  be 
done.  But  I much  doubt  if  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  interfere  with  de- 
tails more  than  we  have  hitherto  done.  I think  I see  my  way  clearly 
and  know  what  I would  do.  You  may  not  have  the  same  views,  and  I 
am,  at  any  rate,  only  a bird  of  passage.  I will  therefore  interfere  as 
much  or  as  little  as  may  be  thought  desirable,  and  either  allow  things 
to  go  on  much  as  they  have  done,  or  stir  the  Durbar  up.  I shall  not 
write  publicly  or  privately  to  Government  on  the  subject.  You  will  do 
whatever  you  think  necessary.  Sheikh  Imamuddin’s  cash  arrived  from 
Jullundur  to-day.  It  is  the  only  money  in  the  Treasury. 

This  proposal,  carefully  guarded  though  it  was,  brought  down 
on  him,  as  he  expected,  a sharp  rebuke  from  his  brother,  who 
could  never  be  brought  to  see  the  fundamental  importance, 
from  a statesman’s  point  of  view,  of  a clear  balance-sheet ; 
while,  in  reply,  John  pointed  out  that  it  was  the  only  chance  of 
warding  off, — that  which  each  deprecated  equally — the  last  ex- 
tremity of  annexation. 

One  of  the  assistants  to  the  Residency,  Lewin  Bowring,  after- 
wards highly  distinguished  as  Chief  Commissioner  of  Mysore, 
has  furnished  me  with  some  lively  reminiscences  of  his  chief 
during  this  period. 

John  Lawrence  (he  says)  was  very  brusque  of  speech  in  those  early 
days  ; and  what  I can  best  remember  of  them  would  develop  the  rougher 


218 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


rather  than  the  gentler  side  of  his  character.  He  used,  with  a merry 
twinkle  of  his  eye,  to  say  very  sharp  things  to  the  Punjab  chiefs,  under 
which  they  winced,  although  he  was  half  in  fun.  He  certainly  had  what 
is  called  a rough  tongue  then,  and  the  Sirdars  had  a wholesome  dread 
of  him.  Yet,  in  spite  of  his  curtness  of  speech,  he  was  so  popular  with 
us,  his  assistants,  that  there  was  almost  a mutiny  among  us  when  we 
heard  that  Sir  Frederick  Currie  was  to  be  sent  up  to  take  the  place  of 
Sir  Henry,  in  supersession  of  his  brother  John,  in  whom  we  had  un- 
bounded confidence.  John  had  been  assisting  Henry,  during  a tempo- 
rary absence,  in  his  arduous  duties,  and  had  taken  immense  trouble  in 
producing  order  out  of  chaos.  He  was  a far  abler  man  at  details  than 
his  brother,  though  less  considerate,  perhaps,  towards  the  Sikh  chiefs. 
He  introduced  a summary  settlement  of  the  land  revenue,  which  was,  at 
the  time,  in  a most  disorganised  state,  accomplished  many  judicial  re- 
forms, and  devised  a system  analogous  to  our  penny  postage,  which  was 
of  great  benefit.  In  his  endeavours  to  reduce  expenditure  he  insisted 
on  all  orders  for  disbursing  money  being  brought  to  him  for  counter- 
signature,  a proceeding  to  which  the  Durbar  greatly  objected,  and, 
perhaps,  not  without  some  reason,  as  it  was  virtually  the  assumption  of 
the  highest  power  in  the  State. 

When  Rai  Bhaj  Sing,  the  Vakil  of  the  Durbar,  came  to  him  in  the 
morning  with  papers  for  signature,  he  would  say  to  him,  ‘ Well,  Bhaj 
Sing,  aj  kya  naya  dagha  hai  ? ’ (‘  What  new  roguery  is  there  to-day  ? ’) 

And  in  Durbar  he  was  wont  to  autoyer  the  chiefs,  and  omit  all  well- 
turned  complimentary  phrases,  to  the  great  horror  of  the  courtly  Noor- 
ood-deen,  one  of  the  members  of  Council.  The  Durbar,  though  they 
had  a great  respect  for  his  force  of  character,  did  not  regard  him  with 
as  much  affection  as  they  did  his  brother.  He  was  unpretentious  in  his 
habits,  and  used  to  sit  in  his  room  with  his  shirt-sleeves  turned  up  over 
his  arms  and  a cigar  in  his  mouth,  dictating  orders  to  a native  scribe, 
who,  squatting  on  the  ground,  read  out  papers  to  him,  while  his  wife  sat 
close  by  doing  some  needle-work.  We  all  liked  his  plain,  unassuming 
manner,  even  though  his  blunt  speaking  may  at  times  have  given  offence 
to  those  who  were  sensitive  ; for  we  all  felt  that  he  was  a man  of  com- 
manding powers.  Even  in  those  days  he  must  have  been  conscious  of 
great  capacity  to  rule,  as  I remember  his  saying  one  day  that  he  would 
undertake  to  govern  Ireland,  which  was  then  passing  through  a danger- 
ous crisis,  with  success.  He  said  this  not  in  a boasting  way,  but,  as  he 
always  spoke,  with  perfect  simplicity. 

The  difficulties  and  annoyances  of  John’s  public  duties  at  La- 
hore were  not  lessened  by  the  presence  of  any  extra  comforts 
in  his  domestic  life.  Neither  at  that  nor  at  any  other  period  of 
their  lives  did  the  Lawrence  brothers  care  much  for  the  luxuries 
or  refinements  of  civilisation.  At  the  Residency  house  there 
were  very  few  of  the  comforts,  and  notan  abundant  supply  even 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


219 


of  what  are  commonly  considered  to  be  the  necessaries  of  life. 
Henry  was  as  careless  as  John  of  appearances,  and  was  even 
more  unconscious  of  his  surroundings.  The  one  candle  that 
lighted,  or  failed  to  light,  the  tent  in  which  he  and  his  wife  and 
an  assistant  would  be  working  at  night,  was,  as  I have  been  told 
by  an  eye-witness,  placed,  not  in  a candlestick,  but  in  the  neck 
of  an  empty  beer-bottle  ; and  on  one  occasion,  when  a second 
candle  was  wanted  for  the  variety  of  occupations  which  were 
going  on,  Henry,  with  the  utmost  simplicity,  remarked  that  some 
one  must  first  drink  another  bottle  of  beer  ! A curious  com- 
mentary this  on  the  ‘gorgeous  East,’  but  one  which,  peradven- 
ture,  the  great  Puritan  poet  himself  would  have  been  among  the 
first  to  appreciate.  In  his  lavish  hospitality  Henry  Lawrence 
would  often  ask  more  people  to  dinner  than  by  any  possibility 
he  had  room  for,  and  then,  as  likely  as  not,  would  forget  to  order 
the  dinner  for  them.  And  sometimes  a provident  friend,  who 
made  it  his  business  to  look  after  his  chief’s  interests,  would  in- 
quire privately  whether  the  dinner  had  been  ordered,  or  en- 
deavour to  supply  any  deficiencies,  surreptitiously,  from  his  own 
table. 

When  John  took  his  brother’s  place  at  the  Residency,  there 
was  much  more  forethought,  but  there  was  still  little  that  could 
be  called  comfort.  His  wife  and  family  indeed  were  with  him, 
a boon  of  which  he  had  been  deprived  during  nine  months  of 
the  year  1846,  and  five  of  the  year  1847.  But  the  house  which 
had  sufficed  for  the  ample  hospitalities  and  the  simple  wants  of 
the  Lawrence  brothers,  and  had  often  given  shelter,  in  patriar- 
chal fashion,  to  a goodly  band  of  assistants  as  well,  was  not 
found  to  be  large  enough  for  Currie,  who  had  been  designated 
as  their  successor.  The  discomforts  of  building  were  thus  added 
to  those  which  were  inherent  in  the  place  and  in  the  work,  and 
one  or  two  details  of  the  domestic  arrangements,  which  I gather 
from  John  Lawrence’s  letters,  may,  perchance,  not  be  without 
their  interest  to  another  and  more  exacting  generation.  John 
Lawrence  and  his  wife,  his  three  children,  and  a European  ser- 
vant, had  only  two  rooms,  twelve  feet  by  fifteen,  to  divide  be- 
tween them.  Henry  Lawrence  arid  Robert  Napier,  now  Lord 
Napier  of  Magdala,  shared  a third  ; while  the  ‘assistants’  were 
lucky  enough  if  they  fared  as  did  their  chiefs,  and  had  half  a 
room  apiece  ! Such  was  the  mode  of  life,  and  such  the  school 
in  which  some  of  the  best  and  greatest  of  our  Indian  adminis- 
trators were  trained.  The  details  may  seem  trivial,  but  they 


220 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


have  an  interest  and  importance  of  their  own.  For  it  was  here 
that, — following  the  example  set  them  by  the  two  brothers,  the 
two  master-spirits  of  Henry  and  John  Lawrence, — a whole  band 
of  men  learned  lessons  of  simplicity  and  of  contentment,  of  ab- 
sorption in  their  work,  and  of  sympathy  with  the  natives,  which 
they  were  never  afterwards  to  unlearn,  and  which  may  still  be 
said  to  be  a real  power  in  India.  It  was  from  such  materials, 
and  under  such  influences,  that  one  of  the  noblest  portions  of 
the  great  fabric  of  our  Indian  Empire  was  being  built  up — an 
Empire  as  majestic  as  that  of  Rome,  and  ruled,  on  the  whole, 
with  a beneficence  of  purpose  towards  its  subject  races  of  which 
few  Romans  ever  dreamed. 

Hanc  olim  veteres  vitam  coluere  Sabini, 

Hanc  Remus  et frater,  sic  fortis  Etruria  crevit, 

Scilicet  et  rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma. 

One  friendship  formed  by  John  Lawrence  during  this  visit  to 
Lahore,  and  never  afterwards  interrupted,  should  be  noticed 
here.  Under  the  peculiar  conditions  of  our  occupation  of  the 
Punjab,  Lahore  was  the  most  important  military  station  in  India. 
Sir  John  Littler,  one  of  our  best  generals,  was  in  command  of 
the  Division,  and  when  Colin  Campbell — the  famous  soldier 
who  had  played  his  part  in  the  retreat  to  Corunna,  had  fought 
at  Vittoria,  had  led  the  forlorn  hope  and  bled  at  San  Sebastian 
— was  retiring  from  the  scene  of  military  operations  in  China 
at  the  head  of  his  splendid  98th  Regiment,  Lord  Hardinge  de- 
termined to  secure  his  services  also  for  the  post  of  danger,  and 
gave  him  the  command  of  a brigade  at  Lahore.  Here  he  be- 
came a fast  friend,  first  of  Henry,  and  then  of  John  Lawrence. 
‘ I am  delighted,’  he  says  in  his  ‘ Diary,’  * at  the  prospect  of 
John  Lawrence’s  remaining  at  Lahore  during  his  brother’s  ab- 
sence.' He  frequently  accompanied  John  during  his  shooting 
excursions — an  amusement  in  which  the  civilian  was,  from  long 
practice,  much  more  at  home  than  the  soldier.  John  Lawrence 
was  an  excellent  shot.  I have  been  told  by  his  friends  that  he 
would  kill  a jackal  with  his  pistol  from  his  buggy  as  he  was  dri- 
ving by  ; while  Colin  Campbell  regretfully  confesses  that  ‘ he 
could  not  touch  a feather  from  the  back  of  an  elephant.’  No 
one  of  the  Lahore  officials  was  more  grieved  than  he,  on  both 
public  and  private  grounds,  when  it  was  determined  that  John 
Lawrence  was  to  give  place  to  Currie.  ‘ I am  most  sorry,’  lie 
says,  ‘ that  John  Lawrence  is  going.  He  is  not  only  a nice  ’(one 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


22  I 


of  Colin  Campbell’s  highest  terms  of  praise,  as  his  biography 
shows),  ‘ friendly,  and  honest  fellow,  but  he  is  the  sort  of  politi- 
cal authority  with  whom  I should  like  to  act  if  any  disturbance 
were  to  arise  during  our  stay  in  the  Punjab.’  1 

Lord  Dalhousie,  the  new  Governor-General,  on  his  arrival 
in  India  on  January  12,  1848,  was  received  with  the  usual  hon- 
ours at  Government  Mouse,  and  in  the  following  week  Lord 
Hardinge  sailed  for  England,  accompanied  by  Henry  Lawrence, 
after  assuring  his  successor  that,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  ‘ it 
would  not  be  necessary  to  fire  a gun  in  India  for  seven. years  to 
come  ! ’ But  still  Currie  came  not  to  Lahore,  and  still  John 
Lawrence  worked  on  cheerfully,  though  he  was  anything  but 
satisfied  with  his  position  there.  ‘ I hope,’  he  had  written  to  his 
successor-designate  on  November  21,  ‘that  you  will  come  as 
soon  as  you  can  conveniently  do  so.  As  far  as  I am  concerned, 
the  sooner  I am  out  of  the  Punjab  the  better  I shall  be  pleased.’ 
But  the  following  February  still  found  him  in  harness  in  the 
Punjab,  and  when  at  last  he  heard  that  Currie  was  actually  on 
his  way,  he  wrote  to  his  brother  Henry,  offering,  with  his  usual 
unselfishness,  to  return  to  Lahore  at  any  time  rather  than  bring 
him  back  from  England  before  his  health  was  re-established. 

As  I said  before,  sooner  than  bring  you  out  before  your  time,  I will 
come  back  here  again  if  necessary.  But  I would  much  rather  that  Currie 
stayed  the  whole  time.  These  frequent  changes  are  a great  evil.  No 
man  has  time  to  carry  out  his  plans,  and  therefore  to  do  much  good. 
. . . . It  was  bad  enough  when  either  my  own  reputation  or  yours 

was  concerned.  But  it  is  worse  now  ; for  no  one  likes  to  be  made  a 
mere  warming-pan  of.  Government  has  just  written  to  me  to  do  nothing 
about  Mooltan  till  Currie  comes.  Thus  six  weeks  are  lost.  In  two 
months  I would  have  assessed  all  Mooltan.  Men  sent  there  in  the  middle 
of  March  will  only  lose  their  health  going  about,  and  not  accomplish  the 
work  in  double  the  time. 

These  words,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  have  an  immediate 
bearing  on  events  which  were  destined  to  set  the  Punjab  in  a 
flame,  and  to  lead  to  the  annexation  of  the  whole  country.  Had 
John  Lawrence  been  allowed  to  have  his  way  in  the  matter,  he 
would  have  sent  Arthur  Cocks  to  Mooltan  in  January,  and  the 
second  Sikh  war,  with  its  unaccountable  blunderings  and  Cad- 
mean  victories,  might,  possibly,  have  never  taken  place  at  all. 

The  long  expected  Resident  arrived  on  March  6,  and  he  and 


1 Life  of  Lord  Clyde , by  General  Shadwell,  vol.  i.  pp.  148,  159. 


222 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


John  Lawrence,  in  spite  of  previous  heart-burnings,  got  on 
capitally  together.  They  discussed  all  the  pressing  questions 
and  arrived  at  a thorough  accord.  The  new  buildings  had  been 
completed  and  the  ‘ assistants,’  with  two  exceptions,  were  cleared 
out  to  Mean  Meer.  The  patriarchal  period  at  the  Residency  had 
now  passed  away  for  ever.  * Whereas,  in  your  and  my  time,’  says 
John  to  his  brother,  ‘ there  was  neither  privacy  nor  comfort, 
there  will  now  probably  be  too  much  of  both.’  On  March  17, 
‘ St.  Patrick’s  day,’ — as  his  father,  with,  possibly,  awakened 
memories  of  his  lineage  and  his  youthful  escapades,  remarks 
with  satisfaction, — a second  son,  Henry,  was  born,  and  on  April 
3,  the  whole  Lawrence  family,  with  the  baby,  which  was  then 
little  more  than  a fortnight  old,  started  for  Jullundur,  ‘right 
glad  to  go.’ 

John  Lawrence,  after  making  a rapid  tour  through  his  pro- 
vince, reached  in  safety  the  beautiful  hill  station  of  Dhurmsala, 
where  he  had  bought  a house.  The  prospect  of  spending  a few 
weeks  in  that  cool  climate,  with  only  an  occasional  visit  to  the 
plains  when  it  might  be  necessary  to  hold  the  sessions,  seemed 
too  delightful  to  be  true.  And,  unfortunately,  it  was  too  de- 
lightful to  be  true.  For,  before  many  days  had  passed,  news 
came  that  Vans  Agnew  and  Anderson,  the  two  officers  who  had 
been  deputed  to  Mooltan,  had  been  foully  murdered,  and  that 
the  Government  was  in  the  dilemma  which  John  Lawrence  had 
foreseen,  and  had,  in  vain,  tried  to  avert.  We  must  either  now 
enter  at  once  on  military  movements  which  might  land  us  in  a 
general  war  in  the  middle  of  the  hot  season  and  at  the  hottest 
place  in  India,  or,  if  we  postponed  operations  till  the  cool 
season,  we  must  run  the  even  greater  risk  of  appearing  to  hesi- 
tate before  a foe,  and  should  give  time  for  all  the  elements  of 
discontent  first  to  concentrate  themselves  at  Mooltan  and  then 
to  burst  into  a flame  which  might  envelop  the  Punjab. 

What  were  the  circumstances  which  had  placed  us  in  this  sad 
dilemma  ? Moolraj,  the  Dewan  of  Mooltan,  was  the  son  and 
successor  of  the  famous  Sawun  Mull,  to  whom  Runjeet  Sing 
had  committed  the  care  of  the  redoubtable  fortress  which  he 
had  at  last  taken.  The  fortifications  of  Mooltan  had  been 
known  to  fame  ever  since  the  time  of  Alexander,  and  it  was  not 
likely  that  the  chief  who  held  it  would  long  remain  dependent 
on  anyone  else.  Sawun  Mull  had  been  a good  ruler,  as  East- 
ern rulers  go,  and  after  a reign  of  twenty  years,  in  which  he 
had  amassed  an  enormous  fortune,  had  died  in  1844,  leaving  his 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


223 


son,  Moolraj,  the  heir  to  his  wealth  and  to  his  kingdom.  The 
Sikhs,  whatever  their  good  qualities,  are  the  money-makers — 
the  Jews  or  the  Armenians— of  the  Indian  peninsula;  and  Lai 
Sing,  as  the  representative  of  the  paramount  power,  demanded 
from  Moolraj  a nuzzur,  or  succession-duty,  of  acroreof  rupees. 
It  was  a struggle  for  money  rather  than  for  power  on  the  part 
of  each,  and  Moolraj  long  managed  to  fight  off  the  evil  day. 
But  he  was  at  last  induced,  under  a safe-conduct  from  John 
Lawrence,  to  come  to  Lahore  ; and  there,  after  tedious,  but  not 
unfriendly,  negotiations,  the  payment  of  the  succession-duty 
was  arranged.  But  when  Moolraj,  in  a moment  of  vexation, 
expressed  a wish  to  resign  his  post,  he  was  taken  at  his  word. 
Another  Sirdar  was  appointed  in  his  place,  and  two  English  of- 
ficers were  told  off  to  accompany  him  to  Mooltan  and  act  there 
as  they  were  acting  in  other  parts  of  'the  Punjab.  Arthur 
Cocks,  ‘a  fine,  resolute,  good-tempered  fellow,’  as  John  Law- 
rence calls  him,  who  knew  the  Sikhs  well,  had  been  selected  by 
both  brothers  for  the  ticklish  business.  But  an  order  from 
head-quarters  to  take  no  step  in  the  matter  till  the  new  Resi- 
dent should  arrive,  had  caused  another  three  months’  delay,  and 
had  given  the  discontent  at  Mooltan  time  to  come  to  a head. 
Currie,  on  his  arrival,  selected  Vans  Agnew,  a civilian,  and 
Lieutenant  Anderson,  brother-in-law  to  Outram,  for  the  danger- 
ous duty  ; and,  supported  by  a mixed  force  of  five  hundred 
Sikhs  and  Ghoorkas,  they  had  set  out  with  the  new  Dewan,  to 
take  over  the  government  from  Moolraj.  Unfortunately  they 
did  not  go  with  their  escort.  They  went  by  water-,  while  the 
escort  went  by  land,  so  that,  by  the  end  of  the  journey,  they 
were  hardly  known  to  their  natural  protectors. 

What  followed  is  too  well  known,  and  has  been  described  by 
too  many  pens,  to  call  for  a fresh  description  here.  Vans  Ag- 
new and  Anderson  were  treacherously  struck  down  as  they  were 
riding  through  the  gateway  by  the  side  of  Moolraj,  and,  after 
they  had  been  heroically  defended  for  some  twelve  hours  by 
that  portion  of  their  escort  which  remained  faithful,  were  brut- 
ally murdered  and  their  dead  bodies  were  treated  with  every 
kind  of  indignity.  The  original  attack,  like  the  much  more 
recent  one  on  our  embassy  at  Cabul,  seems  not  to  have  beer- 
premeditated  by  those  who  struck  the  blow,  still  less  to  have 
been  deliberately  planned  by  the  authorities.  But  in  Asiatic 
cities,  even  more  than  in  European,  the  sight  of  the  means 
to  do  ill  deeds  often  makes  deeds  ill  done.  The  more  resolute 


224 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


and  reckless  carry  away  by  sheer  force  of  will  the  half-hearted 
or  well-disposed,  and  thus  a whole  city  becomes  involved  in 
the  guilt  of  a few.  But  in  any  case,  Moolraj,  unlike  the  late 
ill-fated  ruler  of  Cabul,  made  the  deed  his  own  by  adopting 
it  after  it  was  done,  and  called  by  proclamation  on  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Punjab — Sikh,  Hindu,  and  Afghan — to  rise 
against  the  hated  foreigner. 

Now  then,  if  ever,  was  the  time  for  prompt  and  energ'etic  ac- 
tion. It  was  an  occasion  to  put  to  the  test  the  knowledge  of 
the  native  character  and  the  fibre  of  each  man  who  was  in  au- 
thority. What  Lord  Hardinge  and  Henry  Lawrence  would 
have  done  under  such  circumstances  is  clear  enougli  from  what 
they  had  so  lately  done  in  the  case  of  Imamuddin  in  Kashmere. 
What  Currie  would  have  done,  had  he  been  left  free  to  act,  may 
be  inferred  from  the  steps  he  did  at  once  take  for  a movement 
towards  Mooltan,  and  from  the  advance  which,  later  on,  he 
carried  out  against  the  wishes,  if  not  the  positive  orders,  of  his 
superiors.  How  John  Lawrence  would  have  acted  is  put  be- 
yond the  reach  of  doubt  by  the  letters  which  I have  before  me 
—letters  written,  not  with  that  cheap  wisdom  which  comes  after 
the  event  and  points  out  what  the  writer  would  have  done  when 
there  was  no  longer  any  chance  of  his  being  able  to  do  it,  but 
sent  off  in  hot  haste,  on  the  day  on  which  he  received  the  news, 
to  Elliot  the  Secretary  to  Government,  to  Currie  the  Resident 
at  Lahore,  and  to  Wheeler  the  Brigadier-General  commanding 
at  Jullundur.  This  it  is  my  business  to  bring  out,  rather  than 
painfully  to  track  the  messages  which  passed  and  repassed  be- 
tween the  Resident,  the  Governor-General,  and  the  Comman- 
der-in-chief, and  which  all  ended  in  their  doing  nothing  at  all. 

How  was  this  ? The  Commander-in-Chief  was  brave  and 
generous  as  a lion,  but  he  was  always  in  extremes.  When  his 
blood  was  up,  and  he  was  within  sound  of  a gun,  there  was 
nothing  he  would  not  do  and  dare.  When  he  had  cooled  down 
he  showed  an  amount  of  caution  which,  in  a less  heroic  nature, 
might  have  been  put  down  to  inertness  or  even  timidity.  The 
Governor-General  was  new  to  India.  He  was  only  thirty-six 
years  of  age,  and,  naturally  enough,  in  this,  the  first  burning 
question  which  had  come  before  him,  he  was  disposed  to  trust 
to  the  counsels  of  others  rather  than  to  his  own  keen  intelli- 
gence and  masterful  will.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  only  occasion 
in  the  whole  of  his  Indian  career  on  which  he  can  be  accused 
of  having  done  so.  The  conclusion  to  which  these  two  highest 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


225 


authorities  came,  was  that  it  was  too  late  to  risk  the  safety  of 
English  troops  in  any  active  operations  ; in  other  words,  as 
Henry  Lawrence  sarcastically  put  it,  they  came  to  a resolution 
‘to  have  a grand  shikar  (hunt)  in  the  cold  season,  under  the 
lead  of  the  Governor-General.’  ITad  the  advice  given  by  John 
Lawrence,  and  supported,  to  a great  extent,  by  Currie,  been 
followed  to  the  end,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  disturb- 
ance at  .Mooltan  might — as  we  have  almost  invariably  found  in 
India  under  similar  circumstances — very  possibly,  have  ended 
where  it  began,  and  have  proved  a mere  local  outbreak. 

The  murder  was  committed  on  April  20.  On  the  30th  the 
news  reached  John  in  his  remote  hill  station  under  the  snowy 
peaks  of  the  Himalayas  ; and  on  that  same  day  he  wrote  two 
highly  characteristic  letters  to  Elliot  and  to  Currie,  extracts  from 
which  I proceed  to  give.  We  feel  as  we  read  how  sound  were 
the  instincts  and  how  keen  the  insight  of  the  man  who  could 
divine  at  a glance  the  exact  nature  of  the  outbreak  and  suggest 
the  measures  which  would  be  most  certain  to  suppress  it.  They 
are  an  anticipation  of  that  far  greater  crisis  which  he  would 
have  to  meet  hereafter,  when,  cut  off — perhaps  happily  cut  off 
— from  Governors-General  and  Commanders-in-Chief,  it  would 
be  his  to  command  rather  than  to  suggest,  to  act  rather  than  to 
think,  and  to  break  through  all  the  restraints  of  etiquette  and 
precedence  in  order  that  something  of  infinitely  more  value 
than  etiquette  and  precedence  might  weather  the  storm. 

My  dear  Elliot, — I have  just  heard  from  Currie,  dated  the  25th,  of  the 
melancholy  affair  at  Mooltan,  and  the  deaths  of  poor  Agnew  and  Ander- 
son. I have  written  to  Currie  offering  to  go  over  if  my  services  can  be 
of  use.  I do  not  want  to  thrust  myself  where  I may  not  be  wanted.  But 
in  such  a crisis  I think  it  right  to  volunteer.  Currie  seems  inclined  to 
leave  it  to  the  Durbar,  and  not  to  march  troops  on  Mooltan.  I send 
you  a copy  of  my  reply  to  him.  The  season,  no  doubt,  is  terribly  bad 
for  moving  troops.  But  the  alternative  seems  worse.  The  lives  of  none 
of  our  officers  in  Bunnoo,  Peshawur,  and  Huzara  will  be  safe  if  speedy 
retribution  does  not  fall  on  those  scoundrels.  It  was  touch  and  go  in 
the  Kashmere  affair  two  years  ago.  It  was  then  a question  whether  the 
Sheikh  surrendered  or  the  troops  went  over  to  him.  If  we  do  nothing 
the  whole  of  the  disbanded  soldiery  of  the  Manjha  will  flock  down  and 
make  common  cause  with  the  mutineers. 

On  the  same  day  he  wrote  to  Currie  : — 

Bad  as  the  Moolraj’s  conduct  may  have  been,  I should  doubt  very 
much  if  he  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the  original  outbreak.  Depend 
Vol.  I. — 15 


226  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1848 

on  it  he  has  been  forced  into  it  by  circumstances.  He  was  notoriously 
a timid  man,  and  one  of  the  chief  points  on  which  he  originally  so  much 
insisted  with  me  was,  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  get  away  before  it 
could  be  publicly  known  that  he  had  given  up  the  country.  It  has  often 
happened  that  in  a row  the  Sikhs  will  not  fight  against  each  other,  and 
that  the  weaker  party  invariably  joins  the  stronger.  Still,  it  seems  in- 
credible that  Khan  Sing’s  force  should  have  behaved  as  it  has  done.  1 
much  fear  now  that  any  troops  of  the  Durbar’s  marching  on  Mooltan 
will  do  as  Khan’s  Sing’s  have  done.  Despite  the  heat  and  advanced 
season  of  the  year,  I would  counsel  action.  Otherwise  you  will  have 
emeutcs,  as  you  fear,  in  Bunnoo,  Huzara,  and  Peshawur.  The  officers, 
willing  or  not,  must  go  with  the  soldiers  to  save  their  lives.  Mooltan  is 
a place  of  no  strength.  There  is  in  your  office  a description  of  the 
fortifications,  drawn  up  by  poor  Anderson.  I would  have  over  a brigade 
from  Ferozepore  and  Jullundur,  and  march  two  European  corps  and  six 
native  ones  on  Mooltan.  The  place  can’t  stand  a siege.  It  can  be 
shelled  from  a small  height  near  it.  I see  great  objection  to  this  course. 
But  I see  greater  ones  in  delay.  The  Durbar  neither  can  do  nor  will  do 
anything.  I never  saw  them  do  anything.  The  initiative  must  in  all 
cases  come  from  us.  Should  you  think  that  I can  be  of  use  in  any  way 
you  have  only  to  say  so.  I could  leave  Barnes  in  charge  of  my  office 
and  be  over  with  you  in  five  days  from  Kangra.  I have  no  personal  wish 
in  the  matter,  but  if  I can  be  of  use,  it  is  my  duty,  in  such  a crisis,  to 
help  you.  I would  come  by  Denanuggur. 

On  the  following  day  he  wrote  again  : — 

My  dear  Currie, — I have  been  thinking  over  the  Mooltan  affair  ever 
since  I heard  from  you.  I am  still  of  opinion  that  our  troops  should 
go  against  the  fort,  not  as  supporters  of  the  Sikh  troops,  but  as  princi- 
pals. I would  besiege  the  place,  and  if  the  garrison  did  not  surrender 
at  discretion  I would  storm  it  and  teach  them  such  a lesson  as  should 
astonish  the  Khalsa.  If  you  don’t  act  till  the  cold  weather  you  will  have 
the  country,  I fear,  in  a flame,  and  insurrections  elsewhere.  You  will 
get  no  revenue  out  of  either  that  country  or  the  surrounding  districts. 
In  fact,  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  will  happen  if  you  delay.  In  the 
event  of  your  not  sending  our  troops,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be 
better  not  to  send  any  Sikhs,  for  they  will  assuredly  fraternise  with  the 
rebels.  I cannot  understand  Moolraj’s  having  hatched  the  plot.  He 
had  all  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain.  He  might  have  remained  at  Mool- 
tan had  he  chosen  ; indeed,  you  showed  him  that  you  would  rather  he 
had  remained.  It  may  be  that,  not  wishing  to  give  up,  and  yet  not  will- 
ing to  hold  on  our  terms  of  dependency,  he  allowed  what  he  thought 
might  be  a petty  emeute  to  be  got  up,  in  order  to  show  us  how  troublesome 
it  would  be  to  manage  the  province.  Be  the  cause  what  it  may,  I would 
not  delay  in  making  an  example  of  the  rascals.  The  day  they  hear  the 


1848  THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR.  22^ 

troops  have  left  Lahore,  they  will  lose  half  their  strength.  Delay  will 
bring  thousands  to  their  standard. 

Yours  sincerely, 

John  Lawrence. 

P.S. — It  is  not  to  the  Sikh  Government  that  we  should  look  to  revenge 
the  death  of  our  officers. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  give  sounder  advice  than  that 
which  these  letters,  written  off  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  con- 
tain. But  unhappily  it  was  not  acted  on,  or,  if  acted  on  at  all, 
not  till  it  was  too  late  to  be  of  avail.  It  is  true  that  John  Law- 
rence had  been  misinformed  as  to  the  strength  of  Mooltan,  and, 
as  he  admitted  a few  days  later,  it  would  have  been  unwise  to 
advance  upon  it  without  a siege  train.  But  was  there  not  a 
siege  train  waiting  all  ready  for  action  at  Ferozepore,  which 
could  be  carried  by  water  down  the  Sutlej  to  within  forty  miles 
of  the  fortress  ? — and  was  it  not  to  guard  against  precisely  such 
an  insurrectionary  movement  as  this  that  Lord  Hardinge  had 
left  behind  him  three  movable  brigades,  ready  to  take  the  field 
at  the  shortest  notice,  at  Ferozepore,  at  Jullundur,  and  at  La- 
hore ? At  that  time  no  preparations  had  been  made  by  Moolraj 
for  a siege,  and  an  immediate  advance,  combined  with  the  news 
that  the  ‘guns  were  following ’ apace,  would,  probably,  have 
taken  the  heart  out  of  such  resistance  as  he  was  prepared  to 
offer  us.  As  regards  the  heat,  if  the  English  had  been  unequal 
to  anything  but  fair-weather  campaigns  in  India,  they  would 
never  have  conquered  India  at  all.  Seringapatam  had  been 
stormed  on  May  4 — in  the  very  height,  that  is,  of  the  hot 
season  ; and,  as  John  Lawrence  thought  of  it,  he  must  have  re- 
called with  a thrill  of  satisfaction  that  the  storming  party  had 
been  led  by  his  gallant  old  father,  who  had  been  left  lying  for 
hours  on  the  breach  in  the  fiery  glare  of  the  sun,  and  yet  had 
weathered  the  storm.  Alighur  had  been  taken,  and  the  battle 
of  Assaye  fought,  in  September,  a more  unhealthy  season  still  ; 
and  John  Lawrence  himself  recollected  our  troops  marching 
up  to  Delhi  from  Shikawatti  in  June. 

Happily,  in  another  part  of  the  Punjab,  in  the  Derajat,  there 
was  a young  lieutenant,  then  engaged  in  the  Revenue  Survey, 
who  was  in  full  sympathy,  not  with  the  Governor-General  or 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  but  with  the  Commissioner  of  the 
Jullundur  Doab,  and  was  in  favour  of  immediate  action.  A few 
hasty  lines  from  Agnew,  addressed  ‘to  General  Van  Cortlandt, 


228 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


in  Bunnoo,  or  wherever  else  he  may  be,’  had  reached  Herbert 
Edwardes  in  his  tent  at  Derra  Futteh  Khan  on  April  22,  and 
had  informed  him  of  what  had  happened  at  Mooltan.  Without 
waiting  to  refer  the  matter  to  any  higher  authorities,  he  at  once 
determined  to  give  all  the  aid  he  could.  Accompanied  only  by 
the  small  force  which  formed  the  guard  of  a revenue  officer  in 
that  turbulent  district,  and  fully  conscious  that  only  a portion 
of  it  could  be  trusted,  he  collected  boats,  he  crossed  the  Indus, 
he  occupied  Leia,  the  capital  of  the  Sind  Saugar  Doab,  and 
there  or  thereabouts,  to  use  his  own  words,  ‘ like  a terrier  bark- 
ing at  a tiger,’  he  awaited  the  attack  of  Moolraj.  Availing  him- 
self of  the  hostility  which  he  knew  to  exist  between  the  different 
races  in  the  Punjab,  he  enrolled  3,000  Pathans  ; thus  follow- 
ing the  reverse  of  the  process  which  afterwards  stood  us  in  such 
good  stead  during  the  Mutiny.  He  armed  the  Mussulmans  of 
the  frontier  against  the  Sikhs  and  Mussulmans  of  Mooltan,  as 
we  afterwards  armed  the  Sikhs  against  the  Mussulmans  and 
Hindus  of  Delhi.  Strengthened  by  these  levies,  byVanCort- 
landt — an  able  officer  who  had  been  in  the  Sikh  service — from 
Bunnoo,  and  by  some  troops  from  Bahawulpore,  under  Lake, 
he  defeated  Moolraj  on  June  18,  the  anniversary  of  the  battle 
of  Waterioo,  in  a pitched  battle  on  the  field  of  Kyneree,  and 
drove  him  headlong  back  towards  Mooltan.  Following  him  up 
he  fought  and  won,  a few  days  later,  a second  battle  at  Suddo- 
sain,  and  actually  penned  Moolraj  and  his  forces  within  the 
walls  of  his  famous  fortress  ! ‘ Now  is  the  time  to  strike,’  he 

wrote  to  Currie  ; ‘it  is  painful  to  see  that  I have  got  to  the  end 
of  my  tether.’  ‘ A few  heavy  guns,  a mortar  battery,  a few 
sappers  and  miners,  and  Major  Napier  to  look  after  them  ’ — this 
was  all  the  assistance  he  had  asked  from  the  authorities  before 
his  advance.  But  unfortunately  it  was  not  forthcoming.  He 
could  not  ‘ go  beyond  his  tether  ; ’ but  the  exploits  which,  as  a 
young  subaltern,  he  had  already  performed  were  worthy  of  the 
man  who,  a few  years  later,  in  still  more  dangerous  times,  was 
to  hold  so  gallantly,  against  mutineers  within  and  enemies  with- 
out, the  all-important  frontier  post  of  Peshawur. 

Hearing  of  Edwardes’  double  victory,  the  Resident,  who  was 
still  opposed,  or  only  lukewarmly  supported,  by  the  supreme 
authorities,  sent,  on  his  own  responsibility,  a force  from  Lahore 
under  General  Whish  to  co-operate  with  that  before  Mooltan. 
But  it  was  too  late.  It  could  not  prevent  a general  rising.  At 
best  it  could  only  check  its  progress.  And,  worse  still,  the  warn- 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


229 


ing  which  John  Lawrence  had  given  against  employing  Sikh 
troops  to  coerce  their  own  countrymen  was  neglected,  and  with 
the  result  which  he  had  foreseen.  Shere  Sing,  the  Sikh  com- 
mander, went  over  at  the  critical  moment  to  the  enemy.  The 
siege  of  Mooltan,  which  had  just  been  begun,  was  raised  ; and 
‘ the  drum  of  religion,’  whose  first  tumblings  had  already  been 
heard  in  Huzara  and  at  Peshawur,  on  the  north  and  west,  now 
sounded  loud  and  long  at  Mooltan  in  the  south,  and  summoned 
the  Sikhs  to  rise  everywhere  and  strike  for  ‘ God  and  the  Guru  ’ 
against  the  foreigner.  The  disbanded  veterans  of  Ferozeshah 
and  Sobraon  left,  once  more,  the  mattock  and  plough,  and 
hurried  to  support  the  renascent  Khalsa  commonwealth.  Nor 
were  they  to  return  to  their  homes  again  till  the  doubtfully  con- 
tested field  of  Ferozeshah  had  found  its  counterpart  at  Chilli- 
anwallah,  and  the  crowning  victory  of  the  British  at  Sobraon 
had  been  thrown  into  the  shade  by  their  still  more  crowning 
victory  at  Gujerat. 

The  Mooltan  outbreak,  encouraged  by  our  delays,  had  thus 
grown  into  a revolt  of  the  Punjab,  and  the  work  of  1846  had  to 
be  begun  over  again.  More  than  this,  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
Punjab,  Golab  Sing,  the  monarch  of  our  creation  in  Kashmere, 
was  said  to  be  only  biding  his  time.  And  the  much  more  for- 
midable Dost  Mohammed,  hating,  as  well  he  might,  those  who 
had  possessed  the  will  to  deprive  him  of  his  throne,  and  whose 
poverty  alone  had  consented  to  restore  it  to  him,  entered  into 
an  alliance  against  us  with  the  most  inveterate  enemies  of  his 
race  and  creed.  It  was  a case  of  ‘ water  with  fire  in  ruin  recon- 
ciled.’ Sikh  and  Afghan,  for  the  first  time  in  their  history, 
were  to  fight  side  by  side  ; Peshawur,  the  most  valuable  ac- 
quisition of  the  Lion  of  the  Punjab,  was  to  revert  to  the  Afghan  ; 
and  ‘ the  dream  and  the  madness  ’ of  Dost  Mohammed’s  life 
was  to  be  fulfilled. 

Roused  by  the  extremity  of  the  peril,  the  British  lion  began 
at  length  to  bestir  himself  in  earnest.  Large  reinforcements 
were  called  for  from  Bombay.  Others  came  hurrying  up  from 
Bengal.  Lord  Dalhousie,  shaking  off  his  scruples  and  his  ad- 
visers, set  out  in  October  from  Calcutta  for  the  scene  of  active 
operations.  ‘ Unwarned  by  precedent,’  he  said  in  public  at  Bar- 
ra£kpore  just  before  he  started,  ‘ uninfluenced  by  example, 
the  Sikh  nation  have  called  for  war,  and  on  my  word,  sirs, 
they  shall  have  it  with  a vengeance.’  And  in  October — exact- 
ly six  months,  that  is,  after  the  murder  of  Agnew  and  Anderson 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


230 


1848 


— the  grand  army  which  was  to  revenge  it  mustered  at  Feroze- 
pore. 

With  the  details  of  the  war  just  begun,  otherwise  than  as 
they  affected  John  Lawrence,  his  province  of  the  Jullundur 
Doab,  his  colleagues,  and  his  future,  this  biography  has  little 
to  do.  A very  rapid  sketch  must  suffice. 

It  was  not  till  November  that  Lord  Gough  took  the  com- 
mand in  person  of  the  splendid  army  which  had  been  collected. 
It  was  an  army  complete  in  all  its  branches,  well  supplied 
with  cavalry,  with  draught  animals,  with  ammunition,  and 
with  guns  ; an  army  which,  looking  at  our  long  experience  in 
India,  people  might  have  been  excused  for  thinking  would  go 
anywhere  and  do  anything.  But  the  first  action,  fought  on 
November  22,  at  Ramnuggur  on  the  Chenab,  ended  in  a serious 
check,  which,  among  other  heavy  losses,  cost  us  the  lives  of 
Cureton  and  W.  Havelock.  The  second  action  of  Sadoolapore, 
on  December  3,  though  it  was  boldly  claimed  as  a victory  by 
the  Governor-General  and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  only  in- 
duced the  Sikhs  to  retire,  at  their  own  discretion  and  in  good 
order,  from  the  Chenab  to  the  Jhelum— from  a good  position, 
that  is,  to  a still  better  one  in  their  rear.  And  now  for  six  weeks 
more  Lord  Gough,  on  whom  the  Governor-General,  knowing 
his  character,  had  enjoined  strict  caution,  forebore  to  advance. 
At  last,  on  January  ir,  he  moved  forward,  and  at  three  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  13th, — his  combative  instincts  aroused  by  some 
half-spent  cannon-balls  which  came  lumbering  in, — the  fiery  old 
general,  in  defiance  of  the  warning  given  him  by  the  battles  of 
Moodki  and  Ferozeshah,  gave  the  order  to  attack. 

The  battle  of  Chillianwallah  was  one  of  those  chequered  and 
desperate  conflicts  which,  in  spite  of  the  gallantry  displayed  by 
a large  portion  of  our  troops,  was  almost  more  dangerous  to  us 
than  an  out-and-out  defeat.  The  advance  of  a brigade  of  in- 
fantry at  a speed  which  brought  them  exhausted  and  breathless 
among  the  enemy’s  guns  and,  after  exposing  them  at  the  same 
time  to  the  galling  crossfire  of  Sikh  marksmen  concealed  in  the 
jungle,  ended  in  a hasty  retreat  and  heavy  loss  ; the  advance  of 
a brigade  of  cavalry  without  skirmishers  in  front,  or  supports  to 
follow  up  behind,  while  our  guns  were  so  placed  in  their  rear 
that  not  one  of  them  could  fire  a shot  in  its  support  ; the  word  bf 
command  heard  or  misheard,  or  possibly  not  heard  at  all,  which 
suggested  to  ears  that  were  too  ready  to  hear  it  a welcome  re- 
treat ; the  retreat  converted  into  a same  qui  pent , in  which  the 


1848 


the  second  sikh  war. 


231 


14th  Dragoons  remorselessly  rode  down  our  own  guns  and  gun- 
ners and  even  those  who  were  engaged  in  works  of  mercy  be- 
hind them  ; the  colours  of  three  regiments  and  four  guns  taken 
by  the  enemy;  the  terrible  total  of  89  officers  and  2,350  men 
killed  or  wounded — these  are  the  chief  incidents  of  the  disas- 
trous battle  which,  in  view,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  of  the  twelve 
guns  which  we  had  taken,  the  imagination  of  the  Governor- 
General  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  endeavoured  to  convert 
in  their  public  despatches  into  another  victory,  but  which  the 
Governor-General,  in  a private  letter  which  lies  before  me, 
characterises,  together  with  its  predecessors,  as  * the  lamentable 
succession  of  three  unsatisfactory  actions  ! ’ The  facts  were 
too  strong  for  proclamations.  The  whole  of  India  knew  the 
truth,  and  those  who  can  remember  the  mingled  anxiety  and 
indignation  which  the  news  of  the  ‘victory  of  Chillianwallah  ’ 
aroused  in  England,  will  remember  also  the  sense  of  relief  with 
which  the  supersession  of  the  brave  old  soldier,  but  the  reckless 
general,  the  Marcellus  of  our  Sikh  wars,  was  received  by  the 
English  public. 

Hitherto  the  conduct  of  the  war  by  the  supreme  civil  and 
military  authorities  had  given  little  cause  for  satisfaction.  But 
there  was  another  set  of  men,  the  founders  of  the  Punjab  school, 
the  statesman-soldiers,  or  soldier-statesmen,  who,  under  the 
humble  name  of  ‘Assistants  to  the  Resident,’  had  been  sta- 
tioned in  outlying  parts  of  the  Punjab,  and  who,  throughout 
this  gloomy  period  had  covered  themselves  with  honour,  and 
had  gone  far  to  retrieve  the  shortcomings  of  their  superiors. 
What  Herbert  Edwardes  had  done  in  his  district,  and  beyond 
it,  has  already  been  described.  But  George  Lawrence  at  Pe- 
shawur,  James  Abbott  in  Huzara,  Herbert  at  the  fort  of  Attock, 
Reynell  Taylor  in  the  Derajat,  and  John  Lawrence  in  the  Jul- 
lundur  Doab — cut  off,  as  most  of  them  were,  from  all  commu- 
nication with  the  outer  world,  or  served  by  troops  on  whom 
little  dependence  could  be  placed,  and,  all  of  them,  surrounded 
by  a vast  native  population  whom  they  had  hardly  yet  had 
time  to  know — held  on  to  their  posts  with  heroic  courage, 
hoping  to  suppress  or  to  postpone  the  general  rising  till  the  su- 
preme authorities  could  be  induced  to  recognise  accomplished 
facts  and  take  the  field.  We  turn  with  pleasure  from  the 
mingled  vacillation  and  rashness,  from  the  divided  command, 
from  the  orders  and  counter-orders,  from  the  undecided  battles, 
and  from  the  victories  that  were  no  victories,  of  the  highest 


232 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


authorities,  to  the  resolution,  the  fearlessness,  the  energy,  the 
clearness  of  vision,  which  marked  each  and  all  of  these  servants 
of  the  East  India  Company.  These  were  the  men,  some  of 
them  connected  by  family  ties,  and  all  of  them  by  ties  of  friend- 
ship, of  common  service,  and  of  sympathy  with  the  subject  of 
this  biography,  who  helped  to  make  Chillianwallah  bearable, 
and  Gujerat  possible.  What  they  did,  side  by  side  with  John 
Lawrence,  in  the  second  Sikh  war,  seems  like  a preparation 
for  what  they  or  their  successors  were  to  do  under  him,  nine 
years  later,  in  the  suppression  of  the  Sepoy  Mutiny.  The  one 
is  a rehearsal  for  the  other,  as  a brief  narrative  of  what  was 
done  by  the  most  conspicuous  among  them  will  show. 

Take  first  the  case  of  George  Lawrence.  He  had  been  sta- 
tioned at  Peshawur,  and  though  his  troops  had  been  plied  with 
solicitations  by  their  natural  ruler,  Chuttur  Sing,  to  rise,  he 
asserted  and  maintained  the  influence  over  the  Sikhs  which 
seemed  to  belong,  as  of  right,  to  all  the  members  of  his  family. 
He  held  on  with  heroic  bravery  to  his  post  against  Sikhs  and 
Afghans  alike,  till,  on  his  escape,  at  the  last  possible  moment, 
from  the  beleaguered  Residency,  he  was  betrayed  into  the  en- 
emy’s hands  by  an  Afghan  whom  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  had  laid 
under  special  obligations.  The  Sikhs,  a far  nobler  race,  to 
whom  treachery  and  ingratitude  are  not  naturally  congenial, 
treated  him  as  their  honoured  guest  rather  than  as  their  pris- 
oner ; said  they  had  received  nothing  but  kindness  from  him 
and  from  his  brothers  ; apologised  for  such  appearance  of 
restraint  as  they  were  obliged  to  put  upon  him,  and  allowed 
him,  after  an  interval,  to  go  on  his  parole  to  the  British  head- 
quarters. 

Take  the  case  of  Lieutenant  Herbert.  He  had  been  sent  by 
George  Lawrence,  when  an  Afghan  invasion  seemed  imminent, 
and  when  Chuttur  Sing  had  already  risen  in  Huzara,  to  oc- 
cupy, in  succession  to  Nicholson,  the  all-important  post  of 
Attock  on  the  fords  of  the  Indus.  He  held  on  to  that  dilapi- 
dated fort  for  seven  weeks,  with  a small  garrison  of  Pathans, 
who  refused  to  desert  him  till  Dost  Mohammed  himself  should 
appear  upon  the  scene  ; and  when  that  happened,  and  they 
found  that  their  wives  and  children  were  in  the  Ameer’s  power, 
they  expressed  their  sorrow  that  they  could  do  no  more. 

Take  the  still  more  striking  case  of  James  Abbott, — the  one 
Englishman  who,  till  very  recent  times,  had  set  eyes  on  Khiva 
— a man  often  misunderstood  or  misliked,  as  we  shall  see,  by 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


233 


his  superiors,  but  one  of  the  most  kindly  and  chivalrous  of 
men,  and,  perhaps,  of  all  his  friends  the  one  who  has  most 
appreciatively  described  the  character  of  Ilenry  Lawrence.1 * 
He  had  been  stationed  almost  alone  among  the  wild  and  un- 
tamed inhabitants  of  Huzara.  Unsubdued  by  the  cruelties  and 
oppressions  of  the  Sikhs,  who  used  to  keep  ten  regiments  at 
a time  in  their  country,  they  had  yielded  to  his  fatherly  kind- 
ness, and,  supported  by  them,  he  now  held  out  for  months  in 
the  fort  of  Srikote,  against  the  large  Sikh  army  under  Chuttur 
Sing,  and  left  it  only  at  the  end  of  the  war.  During  his  rule 
of  five  years  which  followed,  he  helped  to  turn  the  wildest  and 
most  desolate  into  one  of  the  happiest  and  most  peaceful  dis- 
tricts of  the  Punjab.  And  if  he  received  no  external  mark  of 
honour  from  the  Government  he  had  served,  he  obtained,  what 
he  valued  far  more,  the  devoted  attachment  of  his  people.  For 
many  a year  after  his  disappearance  from  among  them,  the  na- 
tives loved  to  recall  how  he  had  fed  their  children  with  sweet- 
meats, which,  when  he  went  out,  he  carried  with  him  for  the 
purpose,  or  to  point  with  filial  veneration  to  the  stone  on  which 
he  had  rested  for  awhile,  saying,  ‘ It  was  on  that  stone  that 
father  Abbott  sat.’ 5 A tribute  this  to  the  qualities  of  the  man 
more  grateful  than  the  actual  worship  which,  as  I shall  describe 
hereafter,  was  paid  by  the  wild  inhabitants  of  Bunnoo  to  the 
heroic  Nicholson  ! So  true  is  it,  that  the  most  lionlike  courage 
is  not  inconsistent  with  the  gentleness  of  a woman  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  a child  ; and  so  seldom  is  it  that  such  qualities  miss 
their  true  and  appropriate  reward. 

'Once  more,  take  the  case  of  Reynell  Taylor.  He  had  been 
left  behind  by  Edwardes  in  the  Derajat  when  he  marched  for 
Mooltan,  and  he  too  proved  equal  to  the  emergency.  Followed 
by  a raw  rabble  of  Pathan  recruits,  he  cleared  the  frontier  of 
Sikh  soldiers,  borrowed  a honeycombed  piece  of  ordnance  from 
the  Xawab  of  Tonk,  and  actually  besieged  the  fort  of  Lukki, 
which  was  held  by  two  regiments  of  Sikhs  with  ten  guns.  Fir- 
ing round  stones  from  the  brook,  in  default  of  round  shot,  from 
his  crazy  bit  of  ordnance,  without  a single  European  soldier, 
with  no  hope  of  reinforcements,  in  the  midst  of  a fanatical  Mo- 
hammedan population  and  threatened  by  an  army  marching 
down  the  Kurrum  valley  from  Cabul,  he  never  thought  of  flinch- 
ing, and,  after  a siege  of  a month,  reduced  the  fort  to  submis- 


1 See  his  1 Reminiscence  ’ in  the  Life  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  voL  ii.  pp.  146-154. 

a Raikes’  Revolt  in  North-  West  Provinces,  p.  26. 


234 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


sion,  and  secured  to  us  forever  the  possession  of  the  Trans- 
Indus  provinces.1  The  story  of  this  heroic  act  is  little  known  in 
England.  It  has  not,  so  far  as  I am  aware,  ever  been  related  in 
any  English  book,  and  though  it  has  been  followed  up  by  a series 
of  exploits  on  the  frontier  not  unworthy  of  it,  yet  a simple  C. 
S.  I.  Reynell  Taylor  still  remains.  But  it  is  not  immaterial  to 
this  biography  to  record  that  on  July  5,  1879,  he  received  an 
honour  which,  ‘dashed  and  flecked  with  sorrow’  though  it  was, 
can  hardly  have  been  of  less  value  in  his  eyes  than  the  high- 
est official  recognition  of  his  services.  For  on  that  day  he 
was  specially  selected  from  amidst  the  vast  throng  of  Indian  he- 
roes and  statesmen  who  were  following  John  Lawrence  to  his 
grave  in  Westminster  Abbey,  to  bear  the  coronet  which  had 
been  so  well  won  and  worn  by  his  friend  and  chief. 

Nicholson,  Cocks,  Lumsden,  and  Lake,  it  need  hardly  be 
said,  had  also  done  their  duty  right  well  wherever  there  was  an 
opening,  or  wherever  they  could  make  one  for  themselves.  But 
what  of  John  Lawrence  himself  ? 

We  last  saw  him  pleading  with  almost  passionate  earnestness, 
after  the  outbreak  at  Mooltan,  with  the  Governor-General,  with 
the  Brigadier  at  Jullundur,  and  with  the  Resident  at  Lahore, 
for  immediate  and  strenuous  action.  His  suggestions,  from 
whatever  causes,  were  not  complied  with,  and  with  the  results 
which  he  had  foreseen.  He  had  been  anxious  to  go  to  Mooltan 
in  person,  but  the  rapid  spread  of  the  revolt  made  it  look  much 
more  likely  that  Mooltan  or  its  emissaries  would  come  to  him. 
He  knew  that  a rising  throughout  the  Punjab  must  be  felt  in 
his  own  Doab,  and  he  made  preparations  accordingly.  Let  us 
briefly  review  his  position. 

The  province  had  been  annexed  for  little  more  than  two 
years  ; a short  interval  this,  in  which  to  pacify  a brave  and 
energetic  people  who  had  been  in  arms  against  us  ; to  sweep 
away  the  worst  abuses  of  the  old  system,  and  to  introduce  the 
elements  of  anew  one,  ‘of  better  manners,  purer  laws.’  Yet 
this  is  what  John  Lawrence,  in  spite  of  his  frequent  absences 
at  Lahore,  had  succeeded  in  doing.  And  he  was  now  to  reap 
the  result.  It  is  of  course  impossible  that  any  system  of  gov- 
ernment can  be  swept  away  and  another  be  put  in  its  place 
without  inflicting  a considerable  amount  of  hardship.  Hun- 
dreds of  place-holders  and  of  hangers-on  to  the  skirts  of  Gov- 

1 See  in  the  Times  for  July  8,  1879,  an  article  headed  ' Anglo-Indians  at  Lord  Law- 
rence's Funeral.' 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


235 


crnment  necessarily  lose  their  means  of  livelihood  ; hundreds  of 
soldiers,  finding  that  an  era  of  peace  and  security  has  dawned, 
feel  their  raison  d'etre  taken  from  them  ; scores  of  feudal  chief- 
tains chafe  at  the  loss  of  their  right  to  govern  or  misgovern  ; 
and  John  Lawrence,  it  should  be  added,  was  never  the  man  to 
shrink  from  inflicting  individual  loss  where  he  thought  it  to  be 
just  and  necessary  for  the  public  good.  The  wonder  is,  under 
the  circumstances,  not  that  the  discontent  was  so  great,  but 
that,  thanks  to  the  wisdom  and  moderation  of  the  changes  he 
made,  it  was  so  little  ; not  that  there  were  so  many  and  such 
desperate  risings  against  the  yoke  which,  however  light,  must 
needs  gall  the  necks  of  the  wearers,  but  that  they  were  so  few, 
so  ill-supported,  and  so  easily  suppressed. 

The  force  in  the  Jullundur  Doab  was  small  enough  for  the 
work  that  might  be  expected  of  it.  At  Jullundur  itself  there 
were  four  native  and  one  European  regiment,  some  Irregular 
horse  and  a battery  of  artillery.  Besides  these,  there  were 
small  detachments  of  native  troops,  which  were  posted  at  vari- 
ous points  of  vantage,  such  as  Hoshiarpore  and  Kangra  ; and 
— more  important  than  all  for  John  Lawrence’s  purpose,  as 
they  were  immediately  subject  to  him — there  were  two  local 
corps  of  military  police,  one  composed  of  Sikhs,  the  other  of 
Hill- Rajpoots.  This  was  the  whole  of  the  force  available  for 
the  protection  of  the  province,  and  even  of  this  a large  portion 
was  to  be  drawn  off  in  the  course  of  the  war  for  military  opera- 
tions in  the  Bari  Doab. 

The  first  symptom  of  the  rising  storm  showed  itself  in  May 
— within  a week  or  two,  that  is,  of  Agnew’s  murder.  It  came 
from  beyond  the  frontier.  Emissaries  from  Mooltan  traversed 
the  hill  districts,  calling  on  the  chiefs  to  rise,  and  promising 
them  the  restoration  of  all  their  rights  and  privileges.  At  the 
same  time  Bhai  Maharaja  Sing,  a Guru  who  had  been  outlawed 
for  a plot  formed  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Resident  at  La- 
hore, using  the  influence  which  his  sacred  character  gave  him, 
collected  together  several  hundred  followers  to  the  north  of  the 
Beas.  His  object,  as  his  movements  showed,  was  the  invasion 
of  the  British  territory.  But  the  fords  of  the  river  were  too 
well  watched  by  its  natural  guardians.  He  beat  a retreat  to- 
wards the  Chenab  ; he  was  there  attacked  by  some  Mussul- 
mans, who  had  discovered  that  the  British  rule  was  preferable 
to  the  Sikh  ; was  driven  into  the  river,  with  hundreds  of  his 
followers,  and  was  seen,  so  it  was  said,  to  disappear,  with  his 


236 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


famous  black  mare,  beneath  its  waters.  But  a Guru  was  not 
fated  to  die  like  a dog ! He  bore  a charmed  life,  and  reap- 
peared now  here,  now  there,  till  he  was  ultimately  taken,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  at  Jullundur,  by  Vansittart. 

Towards  the  end  of  August  a second  inroad  took  place.  Ram 
Sing,  son  of  the  Vizier  of  Nurpore,  one  of  the  small  hill  states, 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  a band  of  marauders  whom  he  had 
collected  from  the  Jummoo  Hills,  crossed  the  Ravi,  seized  the 
fort  of  Shahpore,  proclaimed  with  tattoo  of  drums  that  the  Eng- 
lish rule  had  ceased,  and  took  up  a commanding  position  at 
Nurpore.  Charles  Saunders,  Deputy-Commissioner  at  Hoshiar- 
pore — ‘a  cool  judicious  officer,’  says  John  Lawrence,  ‘one  of 
'the  best  I have  got’ — was  the  first,  with  Fisher’s  Irregular 
Corps,  to  arrive  at  the  spot,  and  he  was  soon  followed  by 
Barnes,  Deputy-Commissioner  at  Kangra,  and  John  T^awrence, 
the  Commissioner,  in  person.  More  troops  came  up,  and,  a few 
days  later,  the  position  was  stormed  (Sept.  18,  1848),  consider- 
able booty  was  taken,  and  Ranf  Sing  escaped  with  difficulty  to 
the  Sikh  army  encamped  at  Russool. 

Meanwhile  though,  as  I have  shown,  the  rebellion  had  been 
spreading  throughout  the  Punjab,  it  had  been  met  by  no  corre- 
sponding effort  on  the  part  of  the  highest  authorities.  Novem- 
ber the  1 st  had  been  fixed  six  months  beforehand  as  the  day  on 
which  our  campaign  was  to  begin,  and  the  rapid  spread  of  the 
rebellion  was  no  reason,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  for  changing  his  plan  ! The  revolt  of  Shere  and  Chuttur 
Sing  at  opposite  ends  of  the  province,  the  consequent  raising 
of  the  siege  of  Mooltan,  the  unopposed  march  northward  of 
Shere  Sing,  and  the  imminent  danger  of  Lahore,  which,  had  he 
known  its  weakness,  he  might  have  taken  then  and  there,  had 
produced  their  natural  effect.  All  the  Sirdars  but  two  joined 
the  insurgents,  and  the  whole  of  the  open  country  was  in  their 
hands. 

A few  extracts  from  a letter  of  John  Lawrence  to  Brigadier 
Wheeler  at  Jullundur,  dated  September  25,  will  give  some  idea 
of  the  dangers  against  which,  in  view  of  this  general  rising,  he 
had  to  guard,  and  of  the  scanty  means  at  his  disposal  for  doing 
so. 

I have  just  received  your  letter  of  the  19th.  Whatever  is  finally  de- 
termined on,  you  may  depend  on  my  working  with  you  cordially  and 
willingly,  and  if  I appear  to  be  stepping  beyond  the  immediate  bounds 
of  my  own  line  in  explaining  my  views,  you  must  forgive  me.  Your  ob- 


1 848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


237 


jcctions  to  my  proposition  regarding  Kangra  and  Nurpore  are  founded 
on  the  paucity  of  troops  at  your  disposal.  This  may  be  an  insurmount- 
able obstacle  to  my  wishes  ; but  I will  shortly  state  what  arrangements 
might  be  made  to  admit  of  those  I proposed,  leaving  you  to  determine 
what  value  is  to  be  placed  on  my  opinion.  As  regards  Kangra,  if  but 
one  wing  of  a corps  can  be  spared,  I would  prefer  it  being  placed  in 
that  fort,  as  it  would  thus  give  me  the  whole  of  the  hill  corps  to  knock 
about  in  the  event  of  an  imeute.  The  men  are  better  suited  to  such 
work,  and  can  be  more  easily  moved  than  Regulars.  As  it  is  now, 
the  utmost  force  I can  detach  are  two  companies — say  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men ; the  rest  are  in  forts,  the  mass  being  required  at  Kangra.  A 
small  force,  moved  on  the  instant,  confounds  insurgents  and  disperses 
them  before  they  can  gather  strength.  If  not  attacked  at  once  they 
daily  increase  in  force,  both  from  friends  and  enemies,  for  they  plunder 
and  destroy  villages  and  force  the  people  to  follow  them.  Such  was  the 
case  with  Ram  Sing.  He  murdered  the  headman  of  one  village  and 
seized  those  of  others.  Two  days  before  we  attacked  him  he  was  joined 
by  one  hundred  and  fifteen  men  of  these  places.  I do  not  distrust  the 
hill  corps.  I think  they  will  be  true  to  us,  though  people  say  otherwise 
at  Lahore.  But  the  fact  of  that  corps  being  disposable  to  march  on 
any  point  with  their  whole  force,  and  the  moral  advantages  alone  of 
regular  troops  being  at  Kangra,  may  make  the  difference  of  a general 
disturbance  in  the  hills  or  not.  . . These  hills  are  full  of  disbanded 

soldiers,  not  inimical  to  us,  but  wanting  service  and  bread ; and  more 
danger  is  to  be  apprehended  here  than  in  the  plains  of  the  Jullundur 
Doab.  . . . In  the  Jullundur  Doab  there  are  few  disbanded  soldiers, 

an  open  champaign  country,  and  no  forts.  Two  infantry  corps,  or  a 
couple  of  irregular  cavalry  corps  and  a battery,  would,  I think,  render 
all  safe.  In  the  hills  we  have  an  area  of  three  thousand  square  miles, 
full  of  soldiery,  with  but  three  companies  at  Nurpore,  and  the  Sikh  local 
corps  locked  up  at  Kangra.  If  it  is  thought  necessary  to  put  a corps  in 
Govindgurh,  surely  it  is  incumbent  to  take  care  of  Kangra ; and  this  I 
can’t  do  if  I detach  any  large  body  of  men  from  it.  Only  consider  the 
moral  effects  of  any  general  disturbance  in  the  hills,  the  roads  rendered 
unsafe,  the  towns  plundered,  and  the  revenues  unpaid  ! 

Whether  the  request  of  John  Lawrence  for  reinforcements, 
thus  made,  was  ultimately  successful  or  not  I have  failed  to 
discover.  But  in  any  case  he  acted  as  if  it  were,  for  during  the 
next  two  or  three  months  he  was  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
with  his  flying  hill-corps,  putting  down  insurrection  wherever 
it  showed  its  head,  and  as  soon  as  it  had  shown  it,  and  at  the 
expense  of  very  little  blood  or  money.  It  was  also  with  his 
full  approval  and  advice  that  Wheeler,  who  was  reluctant  to 
spare  any  of  his  troops  from  Jullundur  for  the  hill  country, 
crossed  with  a portion  of  them  out  of  his  own  district  into 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


238 


1848 


the  Bari  Doab,  to  put  down  disaffection  and  seize  some  forts 
there.  * 

In  November  news  came  that  the  frontier  fort  of  Pathancote, 
which  was  garrisoned  by  only  fifty  Sikhs  from  Kangra  and  a 
few  police,  was  being  besieged  by  a thousand  insurgents,  who 
had  been  collected  in  the  Bari  Doab  and  Kashmere.  The 
danger  was  urgent,  for  the  fort  was  large  and  the  garrison 
small.  It  had  ammunition  and  supplies  for  five  days  only,  and 
the  garrison,  composed  as  it  was  of  Sikhs,  might  be  disposed  to 
hand  over  the  fort  at  once  to  the  enemy.  By  a night  march 
Barnes  relieved  the  garrison  and  made  the  besiegers  withdraw 
to  Denanuggur,  on  the  Sikh  frontier  ; and  by  another  night 
march,  John  Lawrence, — like  Joshua,  when  summoned  by  the 
Gibeonites,  under  circumstances  of  similar  urgency, — march- 
ing ‘all  night,’  crossed  the  Beas  into  the  Punjab  and  attempted 
to  surprise  the  rebels  while  they  were  still  asleep.  He  arrived 
an  hour  too  late,  but  followed  them  up  with  vigour  and  dis- 
persed them.  ‘The  Sikh  troops,’  he  says  in  his  report,  ‘ though 
they  knew  that  they  were  going  against  Sikhs,  evinced  the 
greatest  spirit  and  alacrity.’ 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  unlike  the  inhabitants  of  the 
plains,  who  had  not  only  acquiesced  in  but  welcomed  our  rule, 
the  hill  chiefs  were  naturally  more  or  less  discontented  with  the 
loss  of  their  ancient  privileges  ; and  the  flame  which  had  been 
smouldering  now  burst  out  simultaneously  in  different  direc- 
tions. At  the  other  extremity  of  the  hill  country,  the  Kutocli 
chief  raised  the  standard  of  revolt,  seized  his  ancestral  palace  at 
Teera  and  some  adjoining  forts,  and  fired  a royal  salute  an- 
nouncing the  disappearance  of  the  British  Raj.  At  the  same 
time  the  Raja  of  Jeswun,  lower  down  in  the  hills,  and  the  Raja 
of  Duttarpore,  and  the  Bedi  of  Oonah,  from  the  plain  country, 
rose  up  against  us.  Dividing  his  force  into  two  parts,  Law- 
rence sent  Barnes  at  the  head  of  one  of  them  against  the  Kutoch 
chieftain,  while  he  himself,  with  five  hundred  of  the  Sikh  corps 
and  four  guns,  moved  down  the  Jeswun  valley  against  the  other 
insurgents.  The  success  of  both  expeditions  was  complete. 
Barnes  captured  his  opponent  and  the  forts  belonging  to  him. 
Lawrence  did  the  same.  Subdividing  again  the  small  force  into 
two  columns,  with  one  of  them  he  captured  a hill  above  Umb, 
held  by  the  enemy  ; with  the  other  he  destroyed  the  fort.  Both 
Rajas  fell  into  his  hands. 

The  Bedi  of  Oonah  might  have  proved  a much  more  trouble- 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


239 


some  foe.  He  held  large  possessions  both  in  the  plains  and  in 
the  hills,  and  was  a man  of  considerable  ambition  and  arrogance. 
He  was,  moreover,  as  I have  shown,  the  high-priest  of  the  Sikhs, 
being  descended  from  Nanuk,  the  great  Guru.  This  position 
he  had  won  from  his  brother,  whom  he  had  slain  in  battle.  Such 
a man  could  not  fail  to  be  hostile  to  us,  and  his  opposition  was 
intensified  by  the  fact  that  we  had  set  our  faces  against  the  prac- 
tice, so  dear  to  the  Bedi,  of  female  infanticide.  Many  of  his 
people,  however,  refused  to  fight  for  him,  and  on  the  advance 
of  John  Lawrence  with  a body  of  Sikhs  who  seemed  as  ready  to 
go  against  him  as  against  the  Rajas  of  the  hills,  he  abandoned 
his  stronghold  and  took  refuge  in  the  camp  of  Shere  Sing.  1 
may  add  that  he  shared  in  the  privations  and  disasters  of  the 
subsequent  campaign,  surrendered  to  us  at  its  close,  and  spent 
the  rest  of  his  life  as  a British  pensioner  at  Umritsur. 

The  retreat  of  the  Bedi  into  Sikh  territory  ended  John  Law- 
rence’s campaign — a campaign  of  thirteen  days  only,  but  as 
complete,  on  a small  scale,  as  any  which  was  ever  fought.  A 
bloodless  campaign  is  apt  to  escape  the  notice  of  an  historian, 
for  the  very  reasons  which — if  prevention  is  better  than  cure, 
and  if  to  save  life  and  money  is  better  than  to  throw  them  away 
— ought  to  attract  particular  attention  to  it.  From  this  time 
forward  not  a gun  was  fired  in  the  Jullundur  Doab,  not  even 
when  the  echoes  of  the  disastrous  battle  of  Chillianwallah  might 
well  have  roused  it  to  one  more  effort ; and  that  this  was  so,  was 
due  chiefly  to  the  skill,  the  energy,  the  intrepidity,  the  presence 
of  mind  of  the  Commissioner.  With  a mere  handful  of  troops 
at  his  disposal,  upon  whose  fidelity,  till  he  had  tested  it  in  ac- 
tual warfare,  he  could  not  safely  count,  he  had  taken  measures 
to  quell  risings  in  the  most  opposite  parts  of  his  province,  had 
organised  his  own  commissariat,  had  kept  the  military  authori- 
ties up  to  the  mark,  had  carried  on  the  civil  government  of  the 
country,  had  led  Sikhs  against  Sikhs,  religious  enthusiasts 
against  their  own  high-priest  ! In  November  of  that  memora- 
ble year  the  scales  seemed  evenly  balanced  in  the  Punjab,  or 
even  to  incline,  as  the  result  of  the  first  three  general  engage- 
ments, in  favour  of  the  Sikhs.  How  much  more  desperate 
would  the  struggle  have  been  had  the  Jullundur  Doab  burst 
into  a flame  and  threatened  the  flank  and  rear  of  our  hard- 
pressed  army  ! Golab  Sing,  left  to  himself,  and  surrounded  by 
the  rebels,  would  assuredly  have  joined  them,  and,  probably,  at 
least  one  more  Chillianwallah  would  have  preceded  Gujerat. 


240 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


Such  brilliant  services  could  not  fail  to  be  noticed  by  the  re- 
markable and  masterful  spirit  who  had  succeeded  Lord  Hard- 
inge  as  Governor-General,  who  was  just  throwing  off  the  slight 
symptoms  of  hesitation  which,  on  first  landing,  had  made  him 
defer  to  the  judgment  of  others,  and  who  was  henceforth  bent 
on  showing  everybody,  perhaps  only  too  bluntly,  that  he  could 
afford  to  stand  alone.  ‘ It  was,’  writes  Lord  Dalhousie  to  Henry 
Lawrence  from  Ferozepore,  ‘ in  order  that  no  proclamation 
should  be  issued  without  being  previously  sanctioned  by  me, 
and  in  order  to  ensure  unity  of  action  by  the  Government  and 
its  officers,  and  to  avoid  differences  of  opinion,  that  I advanced 
to  the  verge  of  the  frontier ; and  it  is  for  this  that  I remain 
here  now.’ 

The  bunglings,  the  delays,  and  the  disasters  which  had 
marked  the  opening  of  the  campaign  had  not,  it  will  readily 
v be  believed,  taken  place  without  causing  many  high  words  and 
much  mutual  recrimination  between  the  fine  old  Commander- 
in-Chief  and  the  young  and  self-reliant  Governor-General. 
And  a few  extracts  from  the  confidential  letters  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie to  Henry  Lawrence,  which  have  been  kindly  entrusted 
to  me  by  Henry  Lawrence’s  surviving  son,  will  help  to  fill  a 
large  gap  which  I find  in  Lord  Lawrence’s  letters  from  October, 
1848,  to  September,  1849,  and  will  also  serve  to  bring  vividly  be- 
fore us  one  side  (and  I think  the  least  lovable  side)  of  the  man 
who  was  henceforward  to  exercise  so  powerful  an  influence 
over  the  destinies  of  the  Lawrence  brothers.  They  will  help  to 
explain  so  much  that  is  pleasant  and  so  much  that  is  painful  in 
their  subsequent  relations  to  him  that  I have  no  scruple  in  in- 
serting them  here.  A special  interest,  it  will  be  remembered, 
attaches  to  the  correspondence  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  from  the 
fact  that  the  bulk  of  it — all,  that  is,  over  which  his  executors 
have  an  exclusive  control --is  sealed  up  for  fifty  years  after  his 
death.  Conscious  of  the  integrity  of  his  motives,  he  has  thus 
appealed  from  the  hasty  praise  or  condemnation  of  contem- 
poraries, to  the  deliberate  judgment  of  posterity  ; and  any  con- 
clusions, therefore,  which  we  may  draw  from  a portion  of  his 
correspondence,  even  though  it  be  so  extensive  and  so  impor- 
tant a correspondence  as  that  with  the  brothers  Lawrence,  must 
be  held  with  some  reserve. 

Henry  Lawrence  had  gone,  as  I have  related,  to  England  on 
a year’s  leave,  which  was  to  be  extended,  if  necessary  for  his 
health,  to  two.  But  the  news  of  the  outbreak  at  Mooltan  de- 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


241 


termined  him  to  return  as  soon  as  possible  to  his  post.  He  left 
England  in  November,  reached  Bombay  in  December,  hurried 
up  to  Mooltan,  took  part  in  the  operations  of  the  final  siege, 
left  it  on  January  9,  brought  the  first  news  of  the  capture  of  the 
town — though  not  of  the  fort — to  Lord  Dalhousic,  went  on  to 
the  camp  of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  was  present  on  the 
13th  at  the  disastrous  battle  of  Chillianwallah.  His  beneficent 
influence  had  made  itself  felt  even  before  he  arrived.  1 he 
Sikhs  had  not  been  slow  to  remark  that  the  outbreak  had  fol- 
lowed so  soon  after  his  departure,  and  they  hoped  that  his  re- 
turn might  be  the  signal  for  a pacification.  This  general  belief 
in  the  Ikbal  (prestige)  of  Henry  Lawrence  was  in  itself  enough 
to  arouse  the  spirit  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  to  make  him  put  his 
foot  down,  and  show  his  subordinate  that,  Ikbal  or  no  Ikbal , it 
was  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  not  Henry  Lawrence,  who  would  have 
the  last  word  on  each  question  as  it  came  up.  Nor  can  it  be 
said  that  he  was  wrong  in  this.  There  had  been  rumours  afloat 
that  Moolraj  intended  to  surrender  to  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  as 
soon  as  he  arrived,  in  the  hope  of  getting  more  favourable  terms 
from  him  than  could  be  got  from  any  one  else.  But  a letter 
written  on  December  12  from  Sirhind,  by  the  Governor-General, 
and  intended  to  meet  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  on  his  arrival,  was 
calculated  to  remove  all  misconception  on  this  point. 

I have  to  inform  you  that  I will  grant  no  terms  whatever  to  Moolraj, 
nor  listen  to  any  proposal  but  unconditional  surrender.  If  he  is  cap- 
tured he  shall  have  what  he  does  not  deserve — a fair  trial ; and  if  on  that 
trial  he  shall  prove  the  traitor  he  is,  for  months  in  arms  against  the 
British  Government,  or  accessory  to  the  murder  of  British  officers,  then, 
as  sure  as  I live,  he  shall  die.  But  you  have  one  answer  alone  to  give 
him  now — unconditional  surrender.  I have  told  you  what  will  follow  it. 

An  earlier  letter,  written  on  November  13  from  Allahabad, 
before  the  campaign  had  well  begun,  shows  that  Lord  Dal- 
housie had,  even  then,  made  up  his  mind  as  to  the  necessity  of 
annexation  ; and  there  will  be  few  who  have  followed  the  his- 
tory thus  far  who  will  not  agree  with  him  on  this  point  rather 
than  with  Henry  Lawrence. 

Our  ulterior  policy  (he  says)  need  not  be  promulgated  till  Mooltan  has 
been  taken  and  the  Sikh  rising  has  been  met  and  crushed  ; but  I con- 
fess I see  no  halting-place  midway  any  longer.  There  was  no  more 
sincere  friend  of  Lord  Hardinge’s  policy,  to  establish  a strong  Hindu 
government  between  the  Sutlej  and  the  Khyber,  than  I.  I have  done  all 
Vol.  I.— 16 


242 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


that  man  could  do  to  support  such  a government,  and  to  sustain  that 
policy.  I no  longer  believe  it  feasible  to  do  so,  and  I must  act  accord- 
ing to  the  best  of  my  judgment  in  what  is  before  us. 

On  January  18,  five  days  after  Chillianwallah,  Henry  Law- 
rence looked  in  upon  his  old  quarters  at  Lahore,  of  which  he 
was  again  to  take  charge  as  Resident  on  the  1st  of  the  follow- 
ing month,  and  there,  as  the  result  of  the  ‘ victory  ’ of  Chillian- 
wallah, he  found  the  Brigadier  in  command  talking  of  building 
up  the  gates  and  breaking  down  the  bridges,  to  delay  the  on- 
ward march  of  the  ‘ conquered  ’ Sikhs  ! 

You  say  you  are  grieved  (says  Lord  Dalhousie  to  him)  at  all  you  saw 
and  heard  at  Lahore  ; so  am  I — so  I have  long  been  ; but  I don’t  know 
whether  our  griefs  are  on  the  same  tack. 

In  other  letters  from  Ferozepore  he  writes  : — 

Never  mind  what  other  people  say  about  your  having  authority  over 
the  Sutlej  Provinces,  or  whether  they  like  it  or  not.  I think  it  expedient 
you  should  have  it  for  the  public  good,  and  that’s  enough  for  anybody. 

Rub  Colonel ’s  nose  in  the  dirt  if  it’s  necessary.  General is 

beyond  all  human  patience  and  endurance.  Pray  coax  or  frighten  Briga- 
dier   away. 

The  letter  in  which  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  had  so  lately  ar- 
rived in  India  and  had  never  even  seen  the  Punjab,  severely  re- 
primanded John  Lawrence — not  for  a proclamation  which  he 
had  issued  on  his  own  authority,  but  for  the  draft  of  one  which 
he,  with  the  full  consent  of  the  Governor-General,  had  pre- 
pared and  then  humbly  submitted  again  to  him  for  his  approval, 
simply  because  he  had  inserted  in  it  some  slight  expression  of 
his  personal  feelings  for  a brave  foe — has  already  been  pub- 
lished in  great  part  by  Herman  Merivale  in  his  life  of  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence.1  It  need  not,  therefore,  be  quoted  again  here.  The 
reception  of  such  a letter  would  have  been  gall  and  wormwood 
to  a man  of  afar  less  sensitive  and  generous  nature  than  Henry 
Lawrence,  and  it  is  painful  to  those  who  knew  what  he  had 
done  and  what  he  was,  to  read  it  even  now. 

Such  is  the  lot,  the  unenviable,  but,  perhaps,  inevitable,  lot 
of  some  of  the  best  of  our  Indian  public  servants.  And  it  is  a 
drawback  to  their  condition  which  the  changing  circumstances 
of  the  Government  of  India,  the  rapidity  of  communication  bc- 


1 Vol.  ii.  p.  123. 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


243 


tween  it  and  England,  the  increasing  connection  of  European 
with  Indian  politics,  and  the  party  spirit  thus  imported  into 
regions  which  should  be  looked  upon  as  beyond  its  reach,  seems 
likely,  in  the  future,  to  increase  rather  than  to  diminish.  A 
new  Viceroy,  as  has  very  recently  been  the  case,  comes  out, 
bent,  wisely  or  unwisely,  on  reversing  the  policy  of  his  prede- 
cessor, or,  it  may  be,  of  all  the  wisest  of  his  predecessors.  In 
order  to  do  so,  he  has  to  manipulate  or  get  rid  of  the  subordin- 
ate agents  of  that  policy,  and  it  will  depend,  to  a great  extent, 
upon  his  tact,  his  sympathy,  and  his  large-heartedness,  whether 
he  eases  their  fall  or  intensifies  its  bitterness.  It  will  some- 
times happen  that  the  more  an  agent  has  been  trusted  by  one 
Governor-General,  the  less  he  will  be  trusted  by  his  successor  ; 
the  more  he  knows  of  the  merits  of  a particular  question,  the 
less  his  opinion  will  be  asked  upon  it.  It  is,  perhaps,  only 
human  nature  that  it  should  be  so.  The  Athenian  rustic  was 
not  the  only  person  in  the  world  who  would  have  been  glad  to 
banish  Aristides,  because  he  was  tired  of  hearing  him  called 
the  Just.  The  consideration,  therefore,  with  which  an  Indian 
officer  is  treated  by  a new  Governor-General  is,  sometimes, 
likely  to  be  in  inverse  proportion  to  his  merits.  And  still  more 
is  this  the  case  when  the  new  Viceroy  comes  out  not  merely 
charged  to  initiate  a new  policy,  but  with  every  step  in  that 
policy  marked  out  beforehand.  For  while  he  himself — except 
in  those  rare  cases  where  he  has  risen  from  the  ranks  of  the 
Civil  Service — necessarily  knows  little  of  India  from  personal 
experience,  he  is  instructed  by  those  at  home  who,  ex  hypothesi, 
know  even  less.  His  first  step,  therefore,  is  to  elbow  out  of 
his  way,  in  one  method  or  another,  those  who  know  the  facts 
which  tell  against  him,  and  who  have  given  as  many  years  to 
the  study  of  the  problem  which  has  to  be  solved  as  he  has 
hours.  ‘ Local  experience,’  a recent  Viceroy  exclaimed,  when 
the  results  of  that  experience  were  brought  before  him  by  one 
who  knew  the  Afghan  frontier  as  he  knew  his  own  home — ‘ I’ll 
have  none  of  it  ! ’ and  that,  too,  under  circumstances  when  it 
was  all-important  that  he  should  avail  himself  of  it  to  the  very 
full.  He  did  have  none  of  it,  and  with  consequences  which 
India  and  England  alike  will  feel,  to  their  cost,  for  many  years 
to  come. 

Not  that  Lord  Dalhousie  is  to  be  coupled  for  a moment  with 
Lord  Lytton,  or  that  Henry  Lawrence’s  case  was,  in  any  de- 
gree, parallel  to  that  of  those  lifelong  ‘ Wardens  of  the  Marches  ’ 


244 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


who  received  lately  but  ‘ a bow  and  a good-morning  ’ from  the 
Viceroy  who  ought  to  have  picked  their  brains  and  done  his 
best,  if  he  could  not  follow  their  advice,  at  least  to  assimilate  it 
and  to  utilise  their  services.  Lord  Dalhousie,  whatever  his 
faults,  had  a single  eye  to  the  public  good,  and  a determination 
to  learn  all  that  was  to  be  said  upon  a subject  before  he  made 
up  his  mind  upon  it.  He  gave  his  confidence  freely  to  any 
subordinate  whom  he  recognised  as  worth  it,  provided  only 
that  that  subordinate,  after  he  had  delivered  his  protest,  would 
loyally  do  his  bidding  ; and  when  a man  was  a good  man,  Lord 
Dalhousie’s  worst  enemies  will  admit  that  he  never  failed  to 
recognise  him  as  such.  ‘You  give,’  he  says  to  Henry  Lawrence 
on  February  13,  ‘and  will,  I hope,  continue  to  give,  me  your 
views  frankly.  If  we  differ,  I shall  say  so  ; but  my  saying  so  ’ — 
and  here  he  undoubtedly  hits  a blemish  in  Henry’s  mental  con- 
stitution— ‘ ought  not  to  be  interpreted  to  mean  want  of  con- 
fidence.’ And  even  earlier,  on  February  3,  ‘ I assured  you 
lately,’  he  says,  ‘with  entire  sincerity,  that  I have  full  confi- 
dence in  your  ability,  your  vigour,  and  your  experience.  My 
confidence  in  your  possession  of  these  qualities  will  always  en- 
sure that  any  view  you  submit  shall  receive  from  me  the  most 
respectful  and  mature  consideration.’ 

With  this  explanation  of  wdiat  I believe  to  have  been  the  atti- 
tude of  Lord  Dalhousie  towTards  his  subordinates,  I may  proceed 
to  give  a few  of  the  more  striking  passages  from  his  letters 
illustrating  his  force  of  expression,  his  self-reliance,  his  deter- 
mination to  have  his  own  way,  and  his  indignation — possibly, 
sometimes,  the  shortsighted  indignation  of  a civilian  who  could 
not  see  all  the  difficulties  which  were  visible  to  the  military'  eye 
— at  the  blunders  and  shortcomings  of  the  military  authorities, 
especially  of  the  brave  old  Commander-in-Chief. 

One  question  which  had  already  called  down  the  Olyunpian 
thunders  on  the  devoted  head  of  Henry  Lawrence  was  the 
question  which  was  looming  in  the  distance,  of  the  treatment 
of  the  conquered — if,  indeed,  they  ever  should  be  conquered — 
Sirdars.  Henry  Lawrence,  who  knew  them  and  was  known  by 
them  so  well,  was,  with  his  usual  generosity',  in  favour  of  giv- 
ing them  the  easiest  terms  compatible  with  safety.  But  Lord 
Dalhousie  would  hear  of  nothing  of  the  kind.  ‘Their  lives  and 
subsistence’  was  all  that  he  would  promise  to  these  proud  and 
powerful  nobles,  even  if  they  submitted  at  once.  And  when  at 
last  they  fell  into  his  hands  lie  was  as  good  as  his  word.  The 


1 84S 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


245 


more  formidable  of  their  number  lie  proposed  to  banish.  ‘Chut- 
tur  Sing  and  Slrere  Sing  cannot  be  allowed  to  live  at  home  and 
weave  treachery  at  leisure.’  Their  chivalrous  treatment  of  the 
captive  George  Lawrence  and  of  the  English  ladies,  about  whose 
release  Lord  Dalhousie,  throughout  his  correspondence,  shows 
the  tenderest  interest,  seemed  to  him  to  be  no  reason  at  all  for 
dealing  chivalrously  with  them.  ‘As  for  promising  easier  terms 
because  they  have  treated  the  prisoners  well,  I hold  a different 
view.  I hold  that  Chuttur  Sing  and  his  sons,  in  seizing  their 
best  friends  and  making  them  prisoners,  have  shown  themselves 
unmitigated  ruffians  ; and  that  they  have  not  ill-treated  them 
into  the  bargain,  rescues  them  from  irrecoverable  infamy  and 
nothing  more.’  In  vain  did  Henry  Lawrence  plead  day  after  day 
with  touching  earnestness  for  the  less  guilty  Sirdars. 

Nothing  (replied  Lord  Dalhousie)  is  granted  to  them  but  maintenance. 
The  amount  of  that  is  open  to  discussion,  but  their  property  of  every 
kind  will  be  confiscated  to  the  State.  ...  In  the  interim,  let  them 
be  placed  somewhere  under  surveillance  ; but  attach  their  property  till 
their  destination  is  decided.  If  they  run  away  our  contract  is  void.  If 
they  are  caught  I will  imprison  them.  And  if  they  raise  tumult  again,  I 
will  hang  them,  as  sure  as  they  now  live,  and  I live  then. 

Everything  in  camp  (he  says  on  February  1 1),  as  far  as  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  is  concerned,  grows  worse  and  worse.  ...  I expected  no 
good  tidings,  and  the  best  news  which  I now  hope  for  is,  that  his  Excel- 
lency has  not  had  his  ‘ blood  put  up,’  but  has  waited  the  few  days  which 
will  give  him  reinforcements,  that  will  enable  him  to  make  sure  work  of 
the  next  action.  I have  written  to  him  to-day  on  his  future  proceedings 
in  terms  which  I am  aware  will  be  very  distasteful  to  him,  but  which  it 
is  both  necessary  that  I should  employ  as  a caution  to  him,  and  prudent 
that  I should  address  to  him  in  relief  of  my  own  responsibility. 

On  the  following  day,  referring  to  a request  of  Henry  Law- 
rence that  he  might  go  to  the  camp  and  throw  his  influence  into 
the  scale  on  the  side  of  vigour  as  well  as  prudence,  he  writes 
thus  : — 

It  is  already  too  notorious  that  neither  you  nor  anybody  else  can  exer- 
cise any  wholesome  influence  on  the  mind  of  the  Commander-in-Chief ; 
if  you  could  have  done  so  the  action  of  Chillianwallah  would  never  have 
been  fought  as  it  was  fought.  . . . All  that  we  can  do  will  hardly 

restore  the  prestige  of  our  power  in  India,  and  of  our  military  superior- 
ity, partly  from  the  evidence  of  facts,  and  partly  from  the  unwise  and 
unpatriotic  and  contemptible  croaking  in  public  of  the  European  com- 


246 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


munity  all  over  India,  high  and  low.  . . . Moreover,  I have  my 
orders.  I am  ordered  in  the  first  instance  to  conquer  the  country. 
Please  God,  I will  obey. 

Lord  Gough,  it  should  be  remarked  here,  had  been  waiting, 
by  Lord  Dalhousie’s  own  directions,  for  the  reinforcements  with 
which  General  Whish  was  at  that  moment  hurrying  up  from 
Mooltan,  before  he  should  risk  another  battle.  And  it  was 
during  this  inaction  that  news  arrived  that  the  enemy,  who  had 
so  long  been  encamped  opposite  us  at  Russool,  had  suddenly 
left  their  encampment  and  had  gone  off,  Heaven  knew  where  ; 
for  some  of  our  informants  said  they  were  marching  eastward 
for  Jhelum,  others  westward  for  Gujerat ! 

Well  may  you  say  (writes  Lord  Dalhousie  to  Henry  Lawrence  on  Feb- 
ruary 15)  that  it  is  wonderful  that  the  Sikhs  are  allowed  so  to  play 
around  us.  Other  and  stronger  epithets  would  not  be  less  applicable. 
I have  a letter  to-day  from  the  Commander-in-Chief.  He  is  utterly  mys- 
tified. 

The  mystery  was  soon  cleared  up,  and  it  was  found  that 
Shere  Sing  had  turned  Lord  Gough’s  right,  had  got  into  his 
rear,  had  established  his  head-quarters  at  Gujerat,  and  had  even 
pushed  a portion  of  his  forces  across  the  Chenab,  thus  threat- 
ening, or  appearing  to  threaten,  an  advance  on  the  ill-protected 
city  of  Lahore.  Lord  Gough,  meanwhile,  who  had  been  com- 
plaining for  a month  past  of  the  encumbrance  of  his  heavy 
baggage,  but  had  declined  to  move  it  from  his  camp,  found  it 
impossible  to  follow  up  the  enemy  closely,  or  even  to  detach  a 
brigade  to  guard  the  crossing  of  the  river. 

It  is  sad  work  (says  Lord  Dalhousie)  to  be  thus  out-generalled  day 
after  day.  ...  I wait,  as  patiently  as  I may,  the  announcement  of 
where  the  enemy  are,  or  what  we  are  doing.  At  present  I have  only 
the  intelligence  of  the  Commandcr-in-Chief,  which  might  be  stereotyped, 
that  ‘ the  order  is  countermanded  till  to-morrow.' 

A letter  written  by  Lord  Dalhousie  to  Ilcnry  Lawrence,  on 
February  20,  is  so  intensely  characteristic  of  the  man,  shows 
so  vividly  his  strength  of  mind,  his  strength  of  will,  his  strength 
of  expression,  and  at  the  same  time  proves  so  clearly  that  the 
submission  which  he  required  from  his  subordinates  he  equally 
expected  them,  in  their  turn,  to  require  from  theirs,  that  I make 
no  apology  for  quoting  it  almost  in  full. 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


247 


The  tidings  you  send,  on  the  whole,  are  satisfactory,  and  I pray  God 
we  may,  for  the  sake  of  all,  and  for  the  peace  of  this  country,  have 
achieved  a ‘ crowning  ’ victory  before  long.  I observe  what  you  say  re- 
garding General  Campbell  (Sir  Colin)  having  told  you  that  there  was 
‘ no  thought  of  crossing  the  Jhelum  this  season.’  Your  brother  will  have 
ere  this  reassured  you  on  that  point,  which  he  incidentally  mentioned  to 
me.  What  ‘thought’  the  camp  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  has  signi- 
fies very  little.  The  camp’s  business  is  to  find  fighting  ; I find  thought; 
and  such  thought  as  the  camp  has  hitherto  found  is  of  such  d — d bad 
quality,  that  it  does  not  induce  me  to  forego  the  exercise  of  my  proper  func- 
tions. It  is  too  late  to  enter  to-night  into  the  details  of  your  letter.  I will 
only  say  now  generally,  that  the  camp  will  cross  the  Jhelum  this  season, 
and,  please  God,  the  Indus  also  ; that  the  Commander-in-Chief  and 
General  Thackwell,  or  the  Departments,  will  not  cross  it ; that  General 
Gilbert  will  command,  and  I hope  the  job  will  be  well  done.  All  this  I 
communicated  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  some  time  ago,  authorising 
him,  and  requiring  him,  in  the  event  of  the  opportunity  presenting  itself, 
to  make  the  arrangements  himself,  and  expedite  matters  as  much  as 
possible. 

I am  greatly  surprised  with  what  you  write  to  me  about  Major  Ed- 
wardes,  or  rather,  I should  say  I am  greatly  vexed,  but  not  surprised 
at  all.  [Edwardes,  it  should  be  explained  here,  had  disbanded  a Pa- 
than  regiment,  whose  fidelity  he  had  suspected,  without  any  authorisa- 
tion from  Sir  Henry  Lawrence.]  From  the  tone  of  your  letter  I perceive 
it  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  you  should  pull  up  Major  Edwardes  for 
this  at  once.  But  I further  wish  to  repeat  what  I said  before,  that  there 
are  more  than  Major  Edwardes  in  the  Residency  who  appear  to  consider 
themselves  nowadays  as  Governor-General  at  least.  The  sooner  you 
set  about  disenchanting  their  minds  of  this  illusion  the  better  for  your 
comfort  and  their  own.  I don’t  doubt  you  will  find  bit  and  martingale 
for  them  speedily.  For  my  part,  I will  not  stand  it  in  quieter  times 
for  half-an-hour,  and  will  come  down  unmistakably  upon  any  one  of 
them  who  may  ‘ try  it  on,’  from  Major  Edwardes,  C.B.,  down  to  the 
latest  enlisted  general-ensign-plenipotentiary  on  the  establishment.  To- 
morrow I will  write  again. 

Believe  me, 

Yours  sincerely, 

Dalhousie. 

The  admirers  of  Lord  Dalhousie — and  it  must  be  admitted  that 
these  letters,  incisive  and  racy,  and  often  opportune,  as  they  are, 
are  not  calculated  to  make  anyone  love  him — and  the  admirers 
of  Lord  Gough,  who,  in  spite  of  his  blunders  and  vacillation, 
was,  in  virtue  of  his  gallantry  and  martial  bearing,  beloved  by 
his  army,  will,  alike,  reflect  with  pleasure  that  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  while  he  was  the  object  of  such  unsparing  sarcasm  and 


248 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


animadversion,  was  preparing  the  way,  by  a careful  exploration 
of  the  ground,  and  by  a series  of  masterly  movements,  for  as 
crowning  a victory  as  ever  smiled  upon  our  arms  in  India.  The 
battle  of  Gujerat  was  fought  on  February  21.  With  20,000  men 
and  a hundred  guns,  Lord  Gough  attacked  the  Sikhs,  who  were 
in  a position  chosen  and  fortified  by  themselves  and  numbered 
50,000  men  armed  with  sixty  guns.  Taught  by  bitter  experience, 
or  influenced,  it  maybe,  by  the  strong  letters  of  Lord  Dalhousie, 
which  I have  before  me,  he  changed  his  tactics  and,  with  the 
help  of  the  skilled  advice  of  Sir  John  Cheape  of  the  Engineers 
and  Sir  Patrick  Grant,  his  son-in-law,  kept  himself  and  his  men 
in  check  till  the  artillery,  in  which  our  real  strength  lay,  had 
done  its  proper  work.  The  Sikhs,  even  after  their  guns  were 
silenced,  fought  like  heroes,  but  they  were  utterly  routed;  and 
Gilbert,  ‘the  best  rider  in  India,’  in  a ride  of  many  days, 
followed  up  the  wreck  of  their  army  till  at  length  it  surrendered 
with  its  guns,  its  ammunition,  and — more  important  than  all  in 
Lord  Dalhousie’s  eyes — its  English  prisoners. 

Few  more  striking  scenes  have  ever  been  witnessed  in  India 
than  this  final  submission  of  the  Sikh  army,  the  last  remnant  of 
the  great  Khalsa  commonwealth.  ‘With  noble  self-restraint’ 
— to  use  the  words  of  Edwin  Arnold — ‘ thirty-five  chiefs  laid 
down  their  swords  at  Gilbert’s  feet,  while  the  Sikh  soldiers,  ad- 
vancing, one  by  one,  to  the  file  of  the  English  drawn  across  the 
road,  flung  down  tulwar,  matchlock,  and  shield  upon  the  grow- 
ing heap  of  arms,  salaamed  to  them  as  to  the  “ spirit  of  the 
steel,”  and  passed  through  the  open  line,  no  longer  soldiers.’ 
But  it  must  have  been  a more  touching  sight  still  when — as  it 
has  been  described  to  me  by  eye-witnesses — each  horseman 
among  them  had  to  part  for  the  last  time  from  the  animal 
which  he  regarded  as  part  of  himself — from  the  gallant  charger 
which  had  borne  him  in  safety  in  many  an  irresistible  charge 
over  many  a battle-field.  This  was  too  much  even  for  Sikh  en- 
durance. He  caressed  and  patted  his  faithful  companion  on 
every  part  of  his  body,  and  then  turned  resolutely  away.  But 
his  resolution  failed  him.  He  turned  back  again  and  again  to 
give  one  caress  more,  and  then,  as  he  tore  himself  away  for  the 
very  last  time,  brushed  a teardrop  from  his  eye,  and  exclaimed, 
in  words  which  give  the  key  to  so  much  of  the  history  of  the  re- 
lations of  the  Sikhs  to  us,  their  manly  resistance,  and  their  not 
less  manly  submission  to  the  inevitable,  ‘ Runjeet  Sing  is  dead 
to-day  ! ’ 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


249 


1S48 

But  Gilbert’s  task  was  not  yet  done.  Pursuing  his  headlong 
career  further  still,  he  drove  the  Afghan  contingent  over  the  In- 
dus, through  Peshawur,  and  right  up  to  the  portals,  the  happily 
forbidding  portals  of  the  Khyber.  The  battle  of  Gujerat  thus 
brought  to  a close,  not  the  campaign  only,  but  the  war.  All  pre- 
vious shortcomings  were  forgotten  in  the  enthusiasm  of  victory, 
and  the  victor  of  Gujerat  was  able,  with  agood  grace,  to  hand  over 
the  command  to  Sir  Charles  Napier,  who  had  been  sent  out,  in  hot 
haste,  to  supersede  him,  and  arrived  from  England  early  in  May. 

The  whole  of  the  Punjab,  together  with  Peshawur  and  the 
Trans-Indus  provinces,  now  lay  at  Lord  Dalhousie’s  feet,  as  the 
prize  of  victory ; and  he  was  not  the  man  to  shrink,  either  ^n 
general  or  special  grounds,  from  appropriating  the  prize.  ‘ I 
take  this  opportunity,’  he  says  in  one  of  his  State  papers  written 
a year  or  two  later,  ‘of  recording  my  strong  and  deliberate 
opinion,  that  in  the  exercise  of  a sound  and  wise  policy  the 
British  Government  is  bound  not  to  put  aside  or  neglect  such 
rightful  opportunities  of  acquiring  territory  or  revenue  as  may 
from  time  to  time  present  themselves’ — a sentence  of  death 
just  or  unjust,  necessary  or  unnecessary,  expedient  or  inexpedi- 
ent, upon  how  many  native  states  ! But,  in  the  case  of  the 
Punjab,  there  could  be  no  question  about  the  justice,  and  little 
about  the  expediency  or  necessity,  of  applying  the  general  rule. 
Twice  the  Sikhs  had  attacked  us  unprovoked,  and,  the  second 
time,  under  circumstances  which  laid  them  open  to  the  charge 
of  treachery  and  ingratitude,  as  well  as  deadly  hostility.  The 
experiment  of  sustaining  the  Khalsa  against  its  own  internal 
weakness  had  been  tried  honestly  and  under  the  most  favourable 
circumstances  by  Lord  Dalhousie  as  well  as  by  Lord  Hardinge, 
by  John  as  well  as  by  Henry  Lawrence,  and  it  had  failed.  We 
had  remained  in  the  country,  to  begin  with,  against  our  own 
wishes,  and  only  at  the  unanimous  and  urgent  request  of  the 
Sirdars ; and  no  sooner  had  we  acceded  to  their  importunity 
than  they  treacherously  rose  against  us  in  arms,  and,  once  again, 
by  their  enthusiasm,  their  discipline,  and  their  valour,  imperil- 
led the  safety  of  our  Indian  Empire. 

Lord  Dalhousie  had  made  up  his  mind  at  an  early  point  in 
the  struggle  as  to  what  must  be  its  ultimate  result,  and  even  so 
chivalrous  a supporter  of  native  states  and  rights  as  Henry  Law- 
rence had  always  been,  had  not  done  more  than  meet  his  views 
with  a half-hearted  opposition.  If  he  was  disposed  to  deny  the 
expediency,  he  was  forced  to  admit  the  justice  of  annexation. 


250 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1848 


John,  with  clearer  views  of  what  the  safety  of  India  required, 
thought  it  to  be  expedient  as  well  as  just.  The  two  brothers, 
as  I gather  from  the  few  papers  relating  to  this  time  which  I 
have  before  me,  had  been  living  together  at  Lahore  since  Janu- 
ary. And  when  an  interview  between  the  Governor-General 
and  the  Resident  was  deemed  necessary  to  arrange  for  the  im- 
pending annexation,  we  can  hardly  wonder  if  the  Resident,  in- 
stead of  going  himself,  preferred  to  send  his  brother  John  on  an 
errand  which  must  have  been  so  distasteful  to  him.  The  mo- 
mentous interview  took  place  at  Ferozepore  on  March  12,  and 
on  the  following  day,  after  4 two  long  conversations,’  John 
returned  to  Lahore,  4 charged  to  convey  to  his  brother  the  sub- 
stance ’ of  what  they  had  been  discussing,  both  as  to  Lord  Dal- 
housie’s  intentions  and  as  to  the  mode  of  carrying  them  into 
execution.  It  was,  I believe,  the  first  time  that  Lord  Dalhousie 
had  set  eyes  upon  the  man  who  was  so  soon  to  become  the  most 
wfamous  of  all  his  lieutenants.  But,  drawing  his  conclusions 
Lcrom  the  vigour  he  had  shown  as  Magistrate  of  Delhi  during  the 
irst  Sikh  war,  from  the  manner  in  which  he  had  governed  the 
Jullundur  Doab  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  from  his  correspond- 
ence with  the  Secretary  to  Government  which  he  had  seen  and 
studied,  he  had  already  taken  the  measure  of  the  man,  and  had 
begun  to  rate  him  at  his  proper  value.  4 What  is  to  be  done  ? ’ 
asked  Lord  Dalhousie,  self-reliant  and  self-sufficing  as  he  was, 
of  the  subordinate,  whose  advice  he  was  hereafter  so  often  to 
ask,  and,  even  when  the  answer  given  did  not  harmonize  with 
his  previous  views,  he  was  not  seldom  to  take — 4 what  is  to  be 
done  with  the  Punjab  now?’  and  John  Lawrence,  who  knew 
well  that  his  questioner  had  made  up  his  mind,  at  all  hazards, 
ultimately  to  annex  the  conquered  province,  answered  with 
characteristic  brevity,  4 Annex  it  now.’  Difficulty  after  difficulty 
was  started  by  the  Governor-General,  but  as  Demosthenes, 
when  asked  what  was  the  first,  the  second,  and  the  third  requis- 
ite of  an  orator,  replied  in  one  word,  4 Action  ; action  ; action,’ 
so  John  Lawrence  met  each  difficulty  as  it  was  started  with  what 
he  considered  to  be  the  best  and  the  only  sufficient  method  of 
meeting  it, — 4 Annex  it  now  ; annex  it  now  ; annex  it  now.’  Im- 
mediate annexation  would  be  easy  while  the  people  were  still 
crushed  by  their  defeat  ; it  would  anticipate  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  of  the  hot  weather,  which  last  year  had  brought  into 
such  fatal  prominence  ; finally,  it  would  at  once  anticipate  and 
clinch  the  determination  of  the  Directors  at  home. 


1848 


THE  SECOND  SIKH  WAR. 


251 


On  March  29  Lord  Dalhousie  sent  his  Secretary,  Sir  Henry 
Elliot,  to  Lahore,  charged  to  declare  publicly  his  determination 
respecting  the  Punjab  ; and  on  the  following  day,  in  presence 
of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  the  Resident,  and  his  brother  John  ; in 
presence  of  the  faithful  remnant  of  the  Sikh  Durbar  ; in  pres- 
ence also  of  the  young  Maharaja,  who  took  his  seat,  for  the  last 
time,  on  the  throne  of  Runjeet  Sing,  Elliot  read  aloud  the  fate- 
ful proclamation.  The  dynasty  of  Runjeet  Sing  was  to  be  de- 
posed ; the  young  Maharaja  was  to  receive  50,000/.  a year  and 
to  have  the  right  of  residing  wherever  he  liked  outside  the  limits 
of  the  Punjab  ; and  the  whole  of  the  territories  of  the  five 
rivers,  together  with  the  Crown  property  and  jewels,  above  all, 
the  peerless  Koh-i-noor,  were  to  belong  to  the  British.  The 
proclamation  was  received  by  those  present  with  silence  and 
almost  with  indifference.  It  was  a step  fraught  indeed  with  tre- 
mendous possibilities  for  good  and  evil.  It  overthrew  the  fond- 
est hopes  and  the  most  generous  aspirations  of  Henry  Lawrence’s 
life,  but  it  was  justified  by  what  had  gone  before  it,  and  the 
most  resolute  opponent  of  unnecessary  annexations  will  admit 
that  it  has  been  more  than  justified  by  its  results. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD.  1849—1852. 

The  Punjab  had  been  annexed,  but  how  was  it  to  be  governed  ? 
It  might  be  placed  under  a purely  military  government,  like 
that  of  Scinde — a system  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  conqueror  of 
Scinde,  the  self-willed  and  brilliant  Sir  Charles  Napier,  who 
was  now  on  the  point  of  landing  in  India  as  Commander-in- 
Chief,  who  despised  all  civilians  as  such,  but  reserved  a special 
portion  of  his  hatred  as  well  as  scorn,  for  those  ‘ soldier-politi- 
cals ’ who,  by  doffing  the  red  coat  and  donning  the  black,  had 
shown  that  they  deliberately  chose  the  darkness  rather  than 
the  light,  and  yet  who — as  even  he  could  not  deny — had  gone 
far  to  make  India  what  it  was.  Or,  again,  the  precedent  af- 
forded by  most  of  our  earlier  and  more  settled  provinces  might 
be  followed  ; the  Punjab  might  have  a purely  civil  government, 
under  the  control  of  a trained  civilian,  whose  primary  object  it 
would  be,  not  to  make  it  a stepping-stone  to  further  conquests 
beyond,  but  to  prove  to  the  East  India  Company  that  it  could 
be  well  governed,  and  yet  turn  out  to  be  a financial,  as  well  as 
a military  and  political  acquisition.  This  was  the  system  which 
it  might  have  been  expected  would  have  been  preferred  by  a 
Governor-General  who  had  never  heard  a shot  fired  till  he 
reached  the  Sikh  frontier,  and  who,  it  was  then  believed,  cher- 
ished almost  as  great  a dislike  for  military  as  did  Sir  Charles 
Napier  for  civil  rule. 

Was,  then,  Sir  Charles  Napier  or  Lord  Dalhousie  to  have  his 
way?  Neither,  and  yet  both.  Both,  that  is,  in  part.  The 
scheme  on  which  Lord  Dalhousie  hit,  as  the  result  of  his  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  the  men  who  had  the  best  claim  to  admin- 
ister the  annexed  province,  was  as  novel  in  the  history  of  our 
Indian  Empire  as  it  was,  at  first  sight,  unpromising.  The  Pun- 
jab was  to  be  governed,  not  by  any  one  man,  however  eminent 
he  might  be,  either  as  a soldier,  or  as  a statesman,  or  as  a mix- 
ture of  both,  but  by  a Board,  the  members  of  which  were  to  be 


IS49-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


253 


drawn  from  both  branches  of  the  service,  and  were  to  work 
under  a system  of  ‘ divided  labour,  but  of  common  responsi- 
bility.’ 

‘A  Board,’  remarks  Sir  Charles  Napier,  when  criticising  the 
new  arrangement,  * rarely  has  any  talent.’  And  other  and  less 
unfriendly  observers,  knowing  the  antagonistic  and  self-con- 
tradictory elements  which  this  particular  Board  contained, 
remarked  that  it  was  self-condemned  from  its  birth  ; that  it  con- 
tained within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  dissolution.  There  was 
truth  in  these  sayings.  But  it  was  only  a small  portion  of  the 
truth.  A Board  is  in  itself  a compromise,  and  therefore  cannot 
possibly  have  the  unity,  the  rapidity,  the  concentration,  the  in- 
dividuality, which  a single  mind — especially  if  that  single  mind 
has  within  it  a spark  of  the  sacred  fire  of  genius — can  bring  to 
bear  on  those  whom  it  governs.  Again,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  seething  elements  implied  by  the  presence  of  such  diverse 
and  yet  such  masterful  spirits  as  Henry  and  John  Lawrence 
would  one  day  become  explosive.  A volcano  may  be  quiescent 
for  many  a year,  but  it  is  a volcano  still. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  because  the  Board  was,  at  no 
distant  day,  doomed  to  die,  that  therefore  it  was  stillborn.  It 
did  precisely  the  work  which  it  was  expected  and  meant  to  do, 
and  which,  certainly,  no  one  of  its  three  members  would  have 
done  so  well  by  himself.  In  the  three  years  of  its  existence  it 
accomplished,  at  whatever  cost  to  the  peace  of  mind  of  its  con- 
stituent parts,  a task,  of  which  no  one  of  them  need  have  been 
ashamed,  even  if  it  had  been  the  result  of  a lifetime.  If  the 
Board  succeeded  in  reducing  the  most  warlike  and  turbulent 
people  who  had  ever  crossed  our  path  in  India  to  submission, 
and  made  them  not  only  submissive  but  contented  ; if  it,  literally 
as  well  as  figuratively,  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares  and 
their  spears  into  pruning-hooks  ; if,  in  dealing  with  the  widely 
different  races  and  classes  which  the  Punjab  contained,  it  abol- 
ished an  old  system  and  introduced  a new,  with,  on  the  whole, 
the  minimum  of  inconvenience  or  injury  to  the  few  and  the 
maximum  of  benefit  to  the  many  — and  that  it  did  all  this, 
and  a good  deal  more  than  this,  I hope  now  to  show — then  it 
did  a noble  work  ; it  was  its  own  best  justification,  and  abund- 
antly answered  alike  the  expectations  of  its  founder  and  the 
highest  hopes  of  the  distinguished  men  of  whom  it  was  com- 
posed. 

The  Board  was  to  consist  of  three  members.  At  the  head  of 


254 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


it,  as  of  prescriptive  right,  came  the  man  who  had  filled  the 
highest  post  in  the  country  before  its  annexation,  first  as  Resi- 
dent, and  then,  as  he  might  almost  be  called,  Regent — the  chiv- 
alrous and  high-spirited,  the  eager  and  indefatigable,  Henry 
Lawrence.  That  he  was  appointed  to  the  first  place  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  new  province  is  almost  as  creditable  to  a 
man  of  the  autocratic  tendencies  of  Lord  Dalhousie  as  to  Henry 
Lawrence  himself.  The  friend  and  mentor  of  Lord  Hardinge 
had  already  had  many  a sharp  brush  with  Lord  Hardinge’s  suc- 
cessor, and  there  was  an  antagonism  of  nature  between  the  two 
men  which  each  must  have  felt  that  no  amount  of  mutual  for- 
bearance could  bridge  over.  But  Lord  Dalhousie,  as  I have 
shown,  was  able  to  respect  and  to  trust  those  from  whom  he 
differed,  if  he  knew  that  they  had  the  root  of  the  matter  in 
them.  And  he  was  certainly  not  the  man  to  pass  over,  on  the 
score  of  mere  incompatibility  of  temperament,  the  pre-eminent 
claims  which  Henry  Lawrence’s  previous  services,  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Sikhs,  and  his  influence  over  them  gave  him.  Had 
Lord  Dalhousie  been  anxious  to  clear  him  out  of  his  path  and 
to  put  somebody  else  in  his  place  who  would  be  more  congenial 
to  himself,  who  would  prove  a mere  tool  in  his  hands,  and 
would  be  content  to  register  and  carry  out  his  orders,  it  would 
have  been  easy  for  him  to  do  so  without  incurring  any  ob- 
loquy in  the  process.  For  Llenry  Lawrence,  finding  that  his 
scruples  against  annexation  had  been  finally  overruled,  volun- 
tarily placed  his  resignation  in  Lord  Dalhousie’s  hands,  and 
would  certainly  have  carried  his  purpose  out  had  not  Lord 
Dalhousie  urged  him  to  reconsider  it,  on  the  unanswerable  plea 
that  the  objects  dearest  to  his  heart  could  not  be  thwarted  and 
might  be  furthered  by  his  remaining  at  Lahore.  The  argument 
was  as  honourable  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  who,  knowing  the  differ- 
ences between  himself  and  his  subordinate,  could  go  out  of  his 
way  to  employ  it,  as  to  Henry  Lawrence,  who,  even  in  the  bit- 
terness of  his  soul,  could  recognise  its  binding  force. 

Next  to  Henry  Lawrence  on  the  Board,  in  point  of  influence, 
if  not  of  seniority,  and  marked  out  for  it  by  his  family  name, 
and  by  his  services  in  the  Delhi  district,  in  the  Jullundur  Doab, 
and  at  Lahore  itself,  came  Henry  Lawrence’s  brother  John. 
His  knowledge  of  the  Sikh  races  was  only  less  than  that  of  his 
brother  ; while,  in  mastery  of  details,  in  financial  skill,  in  power 
of  continuous  work,  and  in  civil  training  generally,  he  was  far 
superior  to  him.  A man  who  had  ruled  the  Jullundur  Doab 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


255 


during  the  last  two  years  in  the  way  in  which  John  Lawrence 
had  ruled  it,  and  with  the  results  which  the  prolonged  and 
doubtful  struggle  of  the  second  Sikh  war  had  brought  into  full 
relief,  was  clearly  the  man  to  have  a potential  voice  in  the  rule 
of  the  four  other  Doabs  which  the  fortune  of  war  had  now 
thrown  into  our  hands. 

But  a board  must  consist  of  more  than  two  members,  and 
Charles  Greville  Mansel,  the  third  member  invited  to  serve 
upon  it,  was  a man  of  more  equable  and  philosophic  temperament 
than  either  of  the  Lawrences.  Like  John,  he  was  a civilian  who 
had  served  his  apprenticeship  in  the  best  school  then  known  in 
India — that  of  Mertins  Bird  and  Thomason,  in  the  North-West. 
He  was  a man  of  contemplation  rather  than  of  action,  and  it  was 
perhaps  well  that  he  was  so  ; for  the  two  brothers — with  all  their 
high  mental  gifts — were  pre-eminently  men  of  action.  Mansel 
thus  served  as  a foil  to  them  both,  in  a different  sense  from  that 
in  which  they  served  as  a foil  to  each  other.  lie  was  admirably 
fitted  to  discover  the  weak  points  in  any  course  of  action  which 
was  proposed,  and,  with  somewhat  irritating  impartiality,  would 
argue  with  John  in  favour  of  Henry’s  views,  and  with  Henry 
in  favour  of  John’s.  He  would  thus  throw  the  ‘ dry  light  of  the 
intellect  ’ on  questions  which  might  otherwise  have  been  seen, 
owing  either  to  the  aristocratic  leanings  of  Henry  or  the  demo- 
cratic leanings  of  John,  through  a too  highly  coloured  medium. 
If  he  was  not  good  at  carrying  out  into  action  any  views  of  his 
own,  it  is  probable  that  the  views  of  his  colleagues,  which  they 
might  have  been  anxious,  in  the  exuberance  of  their  energy,  to 
carry  out  at  once,  often  passed,  owing  to  his  idiosyncrasies, 
through  a sifting  process  for  which  they  were  seldom  the  worse, 
and  sometimes  much  the  better. 

The  balance  between  the  civil  and  military  elements  aimed  at 
by  Lord  Dalhousie  in  the  construction  of  the  Board  itself  was 
scrupulously  observed  also  in  the  selection  of  those  who  were 
to  w'ork  under  it.  Besides  George  Christian  the  Secretary', 
upon  whom  John  Lawrence  had  long  fixed  his  eye,  and  Melvill, 
who  was  specially  appointed  by  Lord  Dalhousie  to  the  post  of 
Assistant-Secretary',  there  were  to  be  four  Commissioners  for 
the  four  divisions  of  the  new  province — Lahore,  Jhelum,  Mool- 
tan,  and  Leia ; while  beneath  them,  again,  came  some  fifty-two 
Deputy  and  Assistant-Commissioners  who  were  selected,  in  as 
nearly  as  possible  equal  numbers,  from  the  civil  and  military 
services.  ‘You  shall  have,’  wrote  Lord  Dalhousie  to  Henry 


256 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


Lawrence,  in  anticipation  of  the  annexation,  on  February  26, 
‘ the  best  men  in  India  to  help  you — your  brother  John  to  begin 
with.’  And  he  was  as  good  as  his  word. 

But,  before  I go  on  to  describe  the  work  done  by  the  Board  in 
general,  and,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  between  man 
and  man,  the  part  in  it  borne  by  John  Lawrence  in  particular,  it 
will  be  well  to  give  some  slight  notion  of  the  size,  the  inhabitants, 
and  the  leading  physical  characteristics  of  the  country  which  tljey 
were  to  administer,  and  which,  so  long  as  the  world  lasts,  it  may 
safely  be  predicted,  will  be  bound  up  with  the  name  of  Lawrence. 

The  five  magnificent  streams — the  Sutlej,  the  Beas,  the  Ravi, 
the  Chenab,  and  the  Jhelum — which  have  given  the  name  of 
‘ Punjab  ’ to  the  country  which  they  traverse,  all  rise  amidst  the 
snowy  peaks  of  the  Himalayas,  all  flow  in  the  same  general 
direction,  north-east  to  south-west,  and  all  are  ultimately  united 
in  the  vast  bosom  of  the  Indus.  Each  of  the  five  tracts  of 
country  enclosed  by  these  six  rivers  narrows  gradually  from 
north  to  south,  and  is  known  by  the  name  of  Doab  (the  two 
rivers).  TheJullundur  Doab,  between  the  Sutlej  and  the  Beas, 
is  the  richest  and  most  peaceful  of  them  all.  It  had  been  under 
John  Lawrence’s  rule  for  two  years  past,  and  its  principal  fea- 
tures have  been  sufficiently  described  already.  The  Bari  Doab, 
which  comes  next,  between  the  Beas  and  the  Ravi,  is  the  most 
important,  and,  in  its  northern  part  at  least,  the  most  populous 
of  the  five.  It  contains  the  political  capital  of  the  whole  coun- 
try, Lahore  ; and  the  commercial  and  religious  capital,  Umrit- 
sur.  It  is  the  Manjha,  or  ‘ middle  home  ’ of  the  Sikh  nation, 
which  supplied  the  Sikh  religion  with  its  most  revered  Gurus ; 
Runjeet’s  court  with  its  most  powerful  Sirdars ; and  Run- 
jeet’s  ever-victorious  army  with  its  most  redoubtable  warriors. 
Next,  beyond  the  Bari  Doab,  between  the  Ravi  and  the  Chenab, 
comes  the  Rechna  Doab  ; and  beyond  it,  again,  between  the 
Chenab  and  the  Jhelum,  the  Jetch  Doab,  containing  the  most 
famous  battle-fields  of  the  war  which  was  just  over,  Chillian- 
wallah  and  Goojerat.  Last  comes  the  Sind  Saugar,  or  ‘ocean 
of  the  Indus,’  Doab — so  called  from  the  vast  tracts  of  country 
exposed  to  the  inundation  of  the  river — the  largest,  the  most 
thinly  inhabited,  and  the  most  sterile  of  all. 

Beyond  the  Indus,  between  it  and  the  Suliman  range,  lies  the 
Peshawur  valley  and  the  district  of  the  three  Deras,  or  ‘camp- 
ing grounds,’  of  Afghan  chiefs — Dera  Ismael,  Dera  Futteh,  and 
Dera  Ghazi  Khan,  hence  called  the  Derajat.  It  forms  no  part 


1 849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


257 


of  the  Punjab  proper,  but  on  the  due  arrangements  for  its  de- 
fence depends,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  the  security  of  the 
province,  and  so  of  the  whole  of  our  Indian  Empire. 

For  the  width  of  a few  miles  on  each  side  of  the  six  rivers  of 
the  Punjab  there  runs  a fertile  tract  of  country,  the  soil  of 
which  is  irrigated  by  their  superfluous  waters  and  bears  abun- 
dant crops.  But  far  richer,  far  more  extensive,  and  far  more 
blest  in  every  way  by  nature  than  these  narrow  strips,  is  the 
belt  of  land  which  lies  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Himalayas, 
and  forms  the  northern  portion  of  the  three  central  Doabs.  It 
has  a comparatively  temperate  climate,  a fair  rainfall,  innumer- 
able streams  and  streamlets,  the  feeders  of  the  great  rivers,  and 
it  yields,  with  an  outlay  of  little  labour  and  of  less  skill,  two 
abundant  harvests  in  the  year.  If  the  whole  of  the  Punjab 
were  equal  to  this,  its  richest  part,  it  might  almost  challenge 
comparison  with  Bengal.  But  this  is  far  from  being  the  case. 
For,  between  the  narrow  belts  of  rich  land,  which  owe  their  ex- 
istence to  the  great  rivers,  there  lie  vast  arid  tracts  which  are 
covered,  not  with  the  waving  crops  of  corn  or  cotton,  of  indigo 
or  tobacco,  but  with  scanty  and  coarse  grass  or  with  jungles  of 
tamarisks  and  thorns.  The  soil  is  often  impregnated  with  soda 
or  salt ; the  heat  is  terrible  ; and  the  jungles  are  the  haunt  of 
wild  beasts,  or  of  wilder  men,  whose  livelihood  has  been  gained, 
from  time  immemorial,  by  cattle-lifting  frohi  the  more  cultiva- 
ted districts. 

The  Punjab,  therefore,  is  a country  of  extremes.  One  part 
of  it  is  as  populous  as  Bengal,  in  another  there  is  hardly  a hu- 
man habitation  to  be  seen  ; one  part  smiles  as  ‘ the  garden  of 
the  Lord,’  another  is  as  bare  and  as  barren  as  the  deserts  of 
Scinde  or  Rajpootana.  The  hill  districts,  with  their  mountain 
sanataria,  from  Murree  away  to  Dalhousie,  and  thence  to  the 
Kangra  valley,  to  Dhurmsala,  or  to  Simla,  are  heavens  upon 
earth,  pleasant  even  in  the  hot  season.  The  plains,  at  Lahore, 
for  instance,  and  at  Mooltan,  are  almost  insupportable  to  Euro- 
peans from  the  heat.  When  the  followers  of  the  Arabian  pro- 
phet demurred  to  fighting  beneath  the  full  blaze  of  an  Arabian 
sun,  because  it  was  so  hot,  the  prophet  replied  that  ‘ hell  was 
hotter  still,’  and  on  they  went  to  victory  or  death.  But  a Eu- 
ropean who  is  unlucky  enough  to  find  himself  at  Mooltan  in 
the  hot  season,  will  be  disposed  rather  to  agree  with  the  truth 
expressed  in  the  native  proverb:  ‘When  God  had  Mooltan 
ready  for  His  purpose,  why  did  He  make  hell  ? ’ 

Vol.  I.— 17 


258 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


The  boundaries  of  the  Punjab  and  of  India  are  clearly  marked 
out  by  the  hand  of  Nature.  On  the  north,  the  Himalayas  give 
it  an  absolute  security  from  Chinese  or  Tartar,  or  even  Russian 
scares,  while  on  the  west,  the  range  of  the  Suliman  mountains, 
which  runs  parallel  with  the  Indus,  forms  an  almost  equally 
impenetrable  barrier.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  Suliman 
range  is  traversed  by  passes  which,  under  favourable  circum- 
stances, have  given  an  entrance  to  the  invading  armies  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  and  Timour  the  Tartar,  of  Baber  and  Nadir 
Shah.  But  those  conquerors  were  opposed  by  no  foe  worthy  of 
the  name.  And,  happily  for  us,  here,  again,  range  upon  range 
rises  behind  the  main  mountain  wall,  and  beyond  these,  once 
more,  are  ‘wilds  immeasurably  spread,’  which,  being  inhabited 
by  races  as  rough,  as  wild,  and  as  inhospitable  as  the  soil  on 
which  they  dwell,  altogether  form  an  all  but  impregnable  pro- 
tection to  India.  No  better  series  of  defences,  indeed,  scientific 
or  natural,  could  possibly  be  desired  against  any  foe  who  comes 
from  beyond  Afghanistan  ; and  no  strong  foe,  it  should  be  re- 
marked, can  ever  come  from  within  it. 

The  only  range  of  mountains  within  the  limits  of  the  Punjab 
is  the  Salt  range,  which,  crossing  the  Indus  at  Kalabagh  and 
stretching  westward  to  Pind  Dadun  Khan  on  the  Jhelum,  di- 
vides the  Sind  Saugar  Doab  into  two  parts.  Commercially  it  is 
most  important ; for  salt  is  one  of  the  first  requisites  of  life, 
and  the  supply  it  yields  is  quite  unlimited.  Salt-springs  issue 
everywhere  from  its  base,  and  at  Kalabagh,  in  particular,  pro- 
duce a peculiarly  picturesque  effect,  by  encrusting  with  a snowy 
whiteness  the  blood-red  rocks  around.  North  of  the  Salt  range 
is  the  hilly  district  of  Rawul  Pindi  ; and  beyond  that,  again, 
the  wildly  mountainous  conntry  of  Huzara,  a country  of  crags 
and  caves,  the  abode  of  mountain  robbers  who  had  levied  black- 
mail on  the  surrounding  people  from  the  time  of  Alexander 
downwards,  and  had  never  yet  been  conquered  by  force  or 
fraud,  but  were  to  yield  now  a willing  obedience  to  the  father- 
ly kindness  of  James  Abbott,  and  his  worthy  successor,  John 
Becher. 

The  races  inhabiting  the  Punjab  are  as  varied  as  are  its  phys- 
ical features.  The  Sikhs  proper,  though  they  form  the  flower 
and  the  sinew  of  the  population,  are,  it  must  always  be  remem- 
bered, only  a fraction,  perhaps  a sixth  part,  of  the  whole.  The 
aboriginal  Goojurs  and  Gukkurs,  together  with  the  Rajpoots 
and  other  Hindu  races,  make  up  another  sixth  ; and  the  re- 


259 


1849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 

mainder— the  inhabitants,  that  is,  of  the  Sind  Saugar  Doab, 
of  the  district  round  Mooltan,  of  Huzara,  of  Peshawur,  and  of 
the  Derajat  generally — are  all,  more  or  less,  Mussulman.  It 
must  have  given  no  slight  satisfaction  to  the  English  conquer- 
ors of  the  Punjab,  to  reflect  that,  if  they  had  swept  away  the 
famous  empire  of  the  Sikhs  they  had  at  least  given  religious 
freedom  and  security  from  oppression  to  subject  races  who  were 
four  times  as  numerous.  The  Sikhs  were  the  bravest  and  most 
chivalrous  race  in  India.  They  had  done  their  best  against  us 
in  two  great  wars,  and  they  now  seemed  disposed  to  submit 
with  manly  self-restraint  to  our  superior  power,  if  only  we  used 
it  with  equity  and  toleration. 

A more  serious  difficulty  was  to  be  found  in  those  wild  and 
warlike  tribes  which  line  our  whole  western  frontier,  from  the 
north  of  Huzara  right  down  to  Scinde.  These  tribes  had,  for 
ages,  carried  on  an  internecine  warfare  with  the  more  peaceful 
and  settled  inhabitants  of  the  plains  below,  and  the  heirs  to  the 
rich  inheritance  of  Runjeet  Sing  could  hardly  complain  if  they 
had  to  take  the  bad  part  of  the  bargain  with  the  good.  It  needs 
only  a glance  at  the  position  of  Peshawur — the  prize  for  which 
Afghan  and  Sikh  have  so  often  contended — with  the  Khyber 
frowning  in  its  front,  and  with  mountains  enclosing  it  on  three 
sides,  all  of  them  inhabited  by  tribes  who  have,  from  time  im- 
memorial, levied  black-mail  on  all  travellers  passing  through 
their  territory,  and  have  received  the  presents,  the  bribes,  or  the 
tribute  of  some  of  the  greatest  conquerors  the  world  has  seen, 
while  they  themselves  have  seldom  paid  toll  or  tax  to  any  one — 
to  see  that  the  rich  valley  is  a veritable  apple  of  discord,  for  the 
possession  of  which  those  who  hold  it  are  likely  to  have  to  pay 
in  the  shape  of  large  armaments,  of  chronic  anxiety,  of  occa- 
sional retributory  expeditions,  and,  once  again,  unless  wisdom 
holds  the  helm  at  Calcutta,  of  a distant  and  aggressive  war  in 
which  victory  may  be  even  more  disastrous  than  defeat. 

And  what  is  true  of  the  Peshawur  district  is  true  also,  in  a 
less  degree,  of  the  whole  frontier  line  beyond  the  Indus — of  the 
valley  of  Kohat,  for  instance,  which  is  only  to  be  approached 
from  Peshawur  by  two  long  and  dangerous  and  waterless 
passes  through  the  Afridi  territory  ; of  the  valley  of  Bunnoo, 
which  is  only  accessible  from  Kohat  by  just  such  another  pair 
of  passes  ; and  so  on  along  the  whole  length  of  the  Suliman 
range,  with  its  robber-haunted  defiles,  and  the  champaign  of 
the  Derajat  lying  at  its  feet  as  its  natural  prey.  Altogether,  it 


26o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


was  calculated  that  these  frontier  tribes  could  put  into  the  field 
against  us  100,000  men,  all  fanatical,  all  Mohammedans,  all 
well-armed,  all  excellent  marksmen,  and  all  inhabiting  a coun- 
try admirably  adapted  for  their  own  predatory  warfare,  but 
very  ill-suited  for  regular  military  operations.  The  arrange- 
ments for  the  defence  of  such  a frontier  were  delicate  and  diffi- 
cult enough,  but  upon  their  adequacy,  as  I have  said,  depended 
the  security  of  all  the  rest. 

Such,  then,  was  the  general  nature  of  the  country,  and  such 
the  chief  characteristics  of  the  people  with  whom  the  newly 
formed  Punjab  Board  had  to  deal.  It  remains  to  ask  how  far 
its  task  was  facilitated  or  hindered  by  any  existing  political  or 
social  institutions,  in  particular  by  what  the  masterful  govern- 
ment of  Runjeet  Sing  had  done  or  had  left  undone. 

Runjeet  was,  without  doubt,  an  able  and  vigourous  ruler,  but 
it  was  vigour  and  ability  as  men  understand  it  in  the  East.  A 
good  army  and  a full  exchequer  were  the  two,  and  the  only  two, 
objects  of  his  government.  The  stalwart  frames  and  the  martial 
and  religious  enthusiasm  of  his  subjects  ensured  the  one,  and 
the  intoxication  of  victory  after  victory  and  of  province  added 
to  province  by  the  Khalsa  commonwealth,  made  them  ready  to 
put  up  with  the  abuses  which  supplied  the  other.  The  difficult 
question  as  to  what  articles  of  consumption  are  most  suitable 
for  taxation  and  what  are  not,  gave  Runjeet  Sing  no  trouble  at 
all,  for  he  laid  taxes  on  all  alike.  Houses  and  lands,  stored 
grain  and  growing  crops,  exports  and  imports,  manufactures 
and  the  natural  products  of  the  soil,  luxuries  and  necessities,  all 
contributed  their  quota  to  the  great  cause.  Powerful  provincial 
governors  like  Sawun  Mull  and  the  local  tax-gatherers,  or  kar- 
dars,  were  left  free,  provided  that  they  remitted  good  round 
sums  to  Lahore,  to  squeeze  their  victims,  and  to  feather  their 
own  nests  pretty  much  as  they  liked.  No  statements  of  ac- 
counts were  either  expected  or  received  from  them  by  the  Cen- 
tral Government.  Runjeet’sown  account-book, — the  most  nat- 
ural one,  perhaps,  for  a man  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
— was  a notched  stick.  The  balance-sheet  was  the  last  thing  in 
the  world  with  which  the  paymaster  of  the  forces  would  have 
cared  to  trouble  himself.  We  found  when  we  annexed  the 
country  that  no  balance-sheet  had  been  presented  by  him  for 
sixteen  years.  Punishments  were  few  and  simple.  Thefts  or 
ordinary  murders  were  atoned  for  by  payment  of  a fine  ; crimes 
involving  gross  violence  were  punished  by  mutilation — the  loss 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


261 


of  the  nose,  the  ears,  or  the  hand ; while  the  worst  criminals  of 
all  were  hamstrung.  It  was  reserved  for  Avitabile,  an  Italian 
soldier  of  fortune,  and  ruler  of  the  Peshawur  district,  to  set  the 
example  of  more  barbarous  punishments  still.  His  rule  was 
one  of  simple  terror.  He  feared  not  God  neither  regarded  man. 
He  revelled  in  extortion  and  in  cruelty  of  every  description. 
Those  who  opposed  his  relentless  will  he  blew  away  from  guns 
or  turned  out  in  the  sun  to  die,  naked  and  smeared  with  honey  ; 
others  he  impaled  or  flayed  alive,  sometimes,  it  is  said,  begin- 
ning the  terrible  operation  with  his  own  hands  ! 

Of  prisons  there  were  few,  and  those  few  we  found  to  be  al- 
most untenanted.  The  chief  duty  of  Runjeet’s  police  was  not 
to  prevent  or  detect  crime,  but  only  to  put  down  disorder  and 
facilitate  the  movements  or  the  army.  Roads,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  there  were  none  ; public  conveyances  and 
bridges  none  ; written  law  or  special  ministers  of  justice  none  ; 
schools,  except  of  the  most  elementary  kind,  none  ; hospitals 
and  asylums,  of  course,  none.  If,  therefore,  the  Board  had  very 
much  to  do  they  had  little  to  undo.  Henry  Lawrence,  helped 
by  his  Assistants,  had  already,  in  his  position  as  Resident,  at- 
tacked the  worst  abuses,  and  had  done  something  towards  pay- 
ing off  the  army,  towards  reforming  the  taxes  and  putting  a 
limit  to  the  extortions  of  the  tax-gatherers!  And  now,  as  Pres- 
ident of  the  Board,  with  his  brother  John  as  his  chief  coadjutor, 
he  was  not  likely  to  stop  before  he  had  finished  the  work  to 
which  he  had  put  his  hand,  and  hijd  built  up,  in  an  astonish- 
ingly short  space  of  time,  that  fair  and  firm  political  fabric 
which  was  to  prove  our  surest  support  in  the  hour  of  need. 

The  first  and  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  which  lay  before 
the  Board  was  the  pacification  of  the  country'.  The  greater 
portion,  indeed,  of  those  gallant  foes  who  had  made  us  trem- 
ble for  our  Empire  at  Ferozeshah  and  Chillian wallah  had 
frankly  recognised  that  our  star  was  in  the  ascendant  after  the 
battle  of  Gujerat,  and  on  March  12,  as  I have  already  shown, 
had  thrown  down  their  swords  in  one  vast  pile,  and  had  each, 
with  one  rupee  in  his  pocket,  returned  to  the  plough  whence  he 
had  originally  come.  It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  few  who  had 
remained  faithful  to  us  during  the  struggle.  Obedient  to  our 
summons  they  mustered,  together  with  the  armed  retinues  of 
the  old  Sikh  nobility,  at  Lahore.  The  old  and  invalided  among 
them  were  pensioned  off.  The  remainder  obtained  their  long 
arrears  of  pay,  and  permission  was  given  them,  of  which  they 


262  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1849-52 

were  eventually  to  avail  themselves  largely,  to  re-enter  our  ser- 
vice. 

We  had  thus  disbanded  the  Sikh  army.  It  remained  to  dis- 
arm the  population  and  so  to  deprive  them  of  the  temptation 
to  violent  crime  and  disorder  which  the  possession  of  arms 
always  gives.  The  wearing  of  arms,  as  the  history  of  Eastern 
Europe  still  shows,  is  a privilege  as  dearly  prized  by  a semi- 
civilised  as  by  a barbarous  people,  and  is  often  necessary  for 
the  safety  of  the  wearer.  But  peace,  profound  peace,  was 
henceforward,  as  we  hoped,  to  reign  in  the  Punjab.  Accord- 
ingly, about  six  weeks  after  annexation,  a proclamation  order- 
ing a general  disarmament  was  everywhere  placarded,  and, 
strange  to  say,  was  everywhere  obeyed.  One  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  weapons  of  every  size  and  every  species,  some 
of  them  much  more  dangerous  to  the  wearer  than  to  his  foe, 
and  ranging  from  the  cannon  or  the  rifle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, a.d.,  down  to  the  quoit  or  the  bows  and  arrows  of  the 
time  of  Porus  and  Alexander  in  the  third  century,  b.c.,  were 
voluntarily  surrendered.  The  mountaineers  of  Huzara  and  of 
the  Trans-Indus  frontier  were  the  only  exceptions  to  the  rule. 
They  were  allowed,  and  were  not  only  allowed  but  enjoined,  to 
retain  their  arms.;  for  to  have  disarmed  them  at  this  early  period 
would  have  been  to  lay  them  a defenceless  prey  at  the  feet  of 
their  neighbours  across  the  border. 

The  duty  of  protecting  the  country  which  had  been  thus  de- 
prived of  the  natural  guardians — or  disturbers — of  its  peace  fell, 
as  a matter  of  course,  on  the  conquerors.  To  guard  the  dan- 
gerous frontier  line  it  was  arranged  that  ten  regiments — five  of 
cavalry  and  five  of  infantry — should  be  raised  from  the  country 
itself  ; and  people  of  various  races — Hindustanis,  Punjabis,  and 
Mussulmans — responded  cheerfully  to  the  call.  The  Sikhs,  it 
had  been  feared,  might  flock  in  dangerously  large  numbers  to 
our  standards.  But  it  was  they  alone  who  hung  back  ; and  for 
the  moment  it  seemed  as  though,  contrary  to  all  our  principles, 
we  should  be  obliged  to  hold  the  Punjab  in  check  by  a force 
from  which  the  bravest  of  its  inhabitants  were  excluded.  This 
danger  soon  passed  by.  The  Sikhs  threw  off  their  scruples,  and 
since  then  they  have  rendered  us  valiant  service  whenever  and 
wherever  they  have  been  called  upon  to  do  so.  They  have 
fought  for  us,  with  equal  readiness,  upon  their  own  frontier 
and  in  other  parts  of  India,  on  the  Irrawaddy,  and  on  the  Yang- 
tse-Kiang  ; they  have  borne  their  part  in  the  victorious  march 


1849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD.  263 

on  Magdala  ; they  have  dropped  down  like  an  apparition  on 
the  newly  annexed  island  of  Cyprus  ; and,  more  recently  still, 
they  have  stood  side  by  side  with  us  before  the  ramparts  of  Tel- 
el-Kebir,  and  have  joined  us  in  the  beneficent  race  for  Cairo. 

Within  a year  of  their  being  raised  several  of  the  Punjab  ir- 
regular regiments  shed  their  blood  in  our  service,  and  hence- 
forward they  were  seldom  to  shed  it  in  any  other  cause.  The 
Afridis,  the  Swattis,  and  other  turbulent  tribes  beyond  the  fron- 
tier, learned  that  their  more  peaceable  neighbours  within  it  had 
a formidable  power  behind  them  which  could  not  be  provoked 
with  impunity,  and  began  to  put  some  check  on  their  predatory 
propensities.  Three  horse  field-batteries,  a camel  corps  sta- 
tioned at  Dera  Ismael  Khan,  and  the  famous  ‘ Guide  Corps,’ 
completed  the  movable  defences  of  the  frontier. 

But  the  * Guide  Corps  ’ was  so  remarkable  a body  of  men, 
and  they  will  have  to  be  so  often  mentioned  hereafter,  that  it 
will  be  well  to  give  at  once  some  notion  of  their  leading  charac- 
teristics. The  corps  owed  its  origin  to  a suggestion  thrown  out 
by  the  fertile  brain  of  Henry  Lawrence  at  the  close  of  the  first 
Sikh  war.  It  originally  consisted  of  only  two  hundred  and 
eighty  men,  horse  and  foot.  But,  in  view  of  the  increased 
duties  which  were  now  to  be  thrown  upon  it,  its  numbers  were 
to  be  trebled.  No  more  uncanny,  and  yet  no  more  invaluable, 
body  of  men  was  ever  got  together.  Like  the  Carthaginian 
army  of  old,  which  contained  samples  of  every  nation  that  the 
ubiquitous  fleets  of  the  great  republic  could  reach,  the  Guide 
Corps  contained,  on  a small  scale,  representatives  of  almost 
every  race  and  every  place,  ever)'  language  and  every  religion, 
which  was  to  be  found  in  the  North  and  North-West  of  India. 
It  contained  men  of  every  shade  of  moral  character,  and  men  of 
no  character  at  all.  The  most  cunning  trackers,  the  most  no- 
torious cattle-lifters,  the  most  daring  freebooters,  were  enrolled 
in  it,  were  subjected  to  a wholesome  but  not  an  overstrict  dis- 
cipline, were  clothed  in  a brown  uniform,  so  as  to  be  indistin- 
guishable at  a little  distance  from  the  ground  on  which  they 
moved,  were  privileged  to  receive  a high  rate  of  pay,  and  within 
a very  short  space  of  time  were  found  to  be  ready  ‘ to  go  any- 
where or  do  anything.’  * Ready,  aye  ready  ! ’ might  well  have 
been  their  motto.  Endurance,  courage,  sagacity,  local  knowl- 
edge, presence  of  mind — these  were  the  qualities  which  marked 
a man  out  for  the  Guide  Corps.  On  whatever  point  of  the 
five  hundred  miles  of  our  western  frontier,  with  its  score  or 


264 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


more  of  savage  tribes,  operations  had  to  be  carried  on,  there 
were  always  to  be  found  amongst  the  Guides  men  who  could 
speak  the  language  of  the  district  in  question,  men  who  had 
threaded  before,  and  therefore  could  now  thread  again,  its  most 
dangerous  defiles,  and  could  tell  where  the  hostile  encampment 
or  the  robber-haunted  cavern  lay.  Thus  the  Guides,  in  a new 
but  not  an  untrue  sense  of  the  word,  formed  the  ‘ Intelligence 
Department  ’ of  the  Punjab.  These  were  the  men  for  a daring 
reconnaissance,  for  a forced  march,  for  a forlorn  hope.  Raised 
first  by  Lieutenant  Harry  Lumsden,  they  had  already  done  good 
service  in  border  fighting  and  in  the  second  Sikh  war.  They 
were  soon  to  serve  under  Sir  Colin  Campbell  against  the  Moh- 
munds,  and  their  like,  with  unvarying  success.  Finally,  they 
were  to  be  the  first  of  that  splendid  succession  of  reinforce- 
ments of  which  the  Punjab  was  to  denude  itself  in  the  day  of 
peril  and  send  with  a God-speed  down  to  Delhi.  * I am  mak- 
ing,’ said  Henry  Daly,  their  commander,  as  he  started  with 
alacrity  on  his  honourable  mission,  ‘ and  I intend  to  make,  the 
best  march  that  has  been  heard  of  in  India.’  And  he  was  as 
good  as  his  word.  In  twenty- two  days,  at  the  very  hottest 
season  of  the  year,  he  made  a forced  march  of  five  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  from  Peshawur  to  Delhi ; and  his  men  came  into 
camp,  as  they  were  described  by  an  eyewitness,  ‘ as  firm  and 
light  of  step  as  if  they  had  marched  only  a mile.’  What  wonder 
that  they  were  received  with  ringing  cheers  by  the  small  besieg- 
ing force,  and  were  welcomed,  not  merely  for  what  they  were 
in  themselves — a body  which  represented  the  loyalty  and  the 
energy  of  nearly  every  tribe  of  Upper  India — but  as  an  earnest 
of  the  reinforcements  which  the  Punjab,  wfith  John  Lawrence 
at  the  helm,  and  with  such  supporters  as  Montgomery,  Nichol- 
son, Edwardes,  Chamberlain,  and  a dozen  other  such  at  his 
side,  was  to  pour  forth,  in  quick  succession,  on  the  same  hazard- 
ous errand  ? 

The  whole  frontier  force  which  I have  described,  was,  after 
long  discussion,  made  directly  subject  to  the  Board,  and  was 
placed  under  the  command  of  Brigadier-General  Hodgson. 
One  portion,  and  only  one,  of  the  frontier  line  was  deemed  by 
Lord  Dalhousie  to  be  of  such  paramount  importance  for  the 
protection  of  the  Empire  that  it  was  reserved  for  the  regular 
troops.  This  was  the  Peshawur  Valley,  which, — with  the  Khy- 
ber,  the  direct  passage  to  Afghanistan,  and  thence  into  Central 
Asia,  in  its  front,  and  with  the  fords  of  the  Indus,  the  best  pas- 


1849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


2C5 


sage  to  India,  directly  in  its  rear, — was  to  be  guarded  by  a 
force  of  about  10,000  men,  nearly  3,000  of  them  Europeans. 
The  Board  had  already  shown  by  its  measures  that  it  was  alive 
to  the  truth  of  the  Greek  saying  that  ‘ men,  and  not  walls,  make 
a city  ; ’ but  the  number  of  men  at  their  disposal  was  too  small, 
the  hostile  mountains  were  too  near,  sometimes  not  a couple  of 
miles  from  our  boundary,  to  allow  of  such  a merely  Spartan 
rampart  as  was  possible  in  other  parts  of  our  Indian  frontier. 
Accordingly,  they  arranged  that  the  most  dangerous  portion, 
from  Huzara  to  Dera  Ismael  Khan,  should  be  defended  by  forts 
of  considerable  size,  which  were  to  be  rendered  capable  of 
standing  a siege  ; that  below  these,  again,  from  the  Tonk  Val- 
ley down  to  Scinde,  there  should  be  a chain  of  smaller  fortified 
posts  at  intervals  of  twelve  miles  apart ; and  that  the  whole 
should  be  connected  together  by  a good  military  road,  with 
branches  leading,  on  one  side,  towards  the  hostile  mountains, 
and,  on  the  other,  towards  the  friendly  river. 

So  skilful  and  so  complete  were  these  defensive  arrange- 
ments, and  so  admirable  was  the  forbearance  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  native  character ; the  resolution,  the  promptitude, 
and  the  dash  of  the  officers  who  were  chosen  to  carry  them  out, 
that,  from  that  time  forward,  the  peace  of  the  Punjab  was  never 
seriously  threatened  from  without.  The  warlike  preparations  of 
the  Board  were  thus  all  made,  not  with  a view  to  war,  but,  as 
all  warlike  preparations  ought  to  be  made,  with  a view  to 
peace  ; not  for  aggression,  but  for  defence  ; not  with  a view  to 
a ‘ forward  ’ or  a ‘ backward  ’ policy,  but  with  a determination 
to  stand  firmly  placed  where  they  were  against  all  comers.  And 
I have  purposely  described  these  frontier  arrangements  first, 
not  because  they  are  the  most  prominent  feature  of  the  Pun- 
jab administration,  but  because,  owing  to  their  complete  suc- 
cess, they  are  the  least  so.  They  were  the  essential  conditions 
of  all  the  rest,  and  the  less  we  hear  of  them  after  they  had  once 
been  set  going,  the  more  sure  we  may  feel  that  their  object 
was  attained.  The  ‘Wardens  of  the  Marches,’ chosen  by  the 
Lawrences  for  these  posts  of  danger  and  difficulty,  George 
Lawrence  and  Reynell  Taylor,  Nicholson  and  Edwardes,  Abbott 
and  Becher,  Keyes  and  Pollock,  the  Lumsdens  and  the  Cham- 
berlains were  all  of  them  picked  men  and  pre-eminently  fitted 
for  their  work,  a work  as  modest  as  it  was  heroic.  They  only 
want  their  historian.  Yet  these  were  the  men  whom,  together 
with  others  who  have  faithfully  followed  in  their  footsteps,  a 


266 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


recent  Viceroy,  bent  on  initiating  an  aggressive  line  of  frontier 
policy,  went  out  of  his  way  in  one  of  his  State-papers  deliber- 
ately to  insult.  No  more  cruel  or  more  unjustifiable  attack  has 
ever  been  made  on  several  successive  generations  of  able,  en- 
ergetic, and  single-minded  public  servants.  But  their  reputa- 
tion had  survived  the  attack,  and  the  wisdom  of  their  policy 
has  been  triumphantly  justified  by  the  melancholy  results  of 
the  one  wilful  lapse  from  it.  In  any  case,  so  well  was  their 
work  done — the  work  of  defence  not  defiance,  of  civilisation 
not  conquest — during  the  period  most  identified  with  the  name 
and  fame  of  John  Lawrence,  that  his  biographer,  forgetting  the 
triumphs  of  war  in  the  more  grateful  and  enduring  triumphs 
of  peace,  can  afford,  after  he  has  indicated  the  general  charac- 
ter of  the  frontier  they  had  to  guard  and  the  general  principles 
on  which  they  did  so,  to  let  them  almost  pass  out  of  sight,  re- 
curring to  them  only  at  those  rare  intervals  when  exceptional 
dangers  brought  them  into  exceptional  prominence,  and  showed 
that  they  were  able  to  cope  with  the  need. 

The  country  having  been  disarmed,  and  the  frontier  rendered 
secure,  the  next  object  of  the  Board  was  to  provide  for  the  de- 
tection and  prevention  of  crime.  To  meet  these  ends,  they 
raised  two  large  bodies  of  police,  the  one  preventive,  with  a 
military  organisation,  the  other  detective.  The  preventive  police 
were  8,000  in  nurtiber,  horse  and  foot,  many  among  whom  had 
done  good  service  to  the  late  Durbar,  and  had  remained  faith- 
ful to  us  in  the  Sikh  war.  Their  duty  was  to  furnish  guards 
for  treasuries,  jails,  and  outposts,  to  patrol  the  roads — as  soon 
as  there  should  be  any  roads  to  patrol — and  to  follow  up  gangs 
of  marauders,  should  any  such  appear  or  reappear  in  the  nearly 
pacified  province.  The  other  body,  numbering  7,000  men,  and 
divided  amongst  some  230  police  districts  (thannahs),  was  to  be 
employed  in  the  detection  of  crime,  in  the  guarding  of  ferries, 
and  in  the  collecting  of  supplies  for  troops  or  of  boats  for  the 
passage  of  the  rivers. 

With  a wise  trustfulness  in  its  instruments,  the  Board  left  to  the 
native  revenue  collectors,  called  tahsildars , large  powers  in  the 
way  of  organising  and  controlling  these  police,  thus  utilising 
the  local  knowledge  which  they  and  they  alone  possessed.  The 
native  village  watchmen,  who  formed  an  integral  part  of  the 
old  village  system  and  were  paid  by  the  villagers  themselves, 
were  also  carefully  maintained  by  officers  who  had  learned  the 
priceless  value  of  the  village  communities  in  the  North-West. 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


267 


Special  precautions  were  required  in  those  districts  which  were 
most  infested  by  criminals.  The  Peshawur  valley,  for  instance, 
was  a nest  of  assassins,  in  which  crimes  of  violence  had  always 
been  the  order  of  the  day.  Any  hollow  of  the  ground,  any 
gully,  above  all  any  tomb  of  a Mussulman  saint,  might,  not  im- 
probably, harbour  some  desperate  cutthroat.  The  centres  of 
the  Doabs,  again,  which  were  covered  with  jungle,  or  brush- 
wood, or  tracts  of  long  grass,  had  been,  as  I have  already  men- 
tioned, from  time  immemorial  a very  sanctuary  of  cattle-lifters 
and  their  spoil.  In  these  natural  fastnesses  whole  herds  of  oxen 
which  had  been  driven  off  from  the  richer  lands  near  the  river 
might  graze  and  wander  at  pleasure,  and  yet  lie  impenetrably 
concealed  from  their  former  owners.  Foolish,  indeed,  would 
any  villager  be  who  dared  to  penetrate  such  a Cyclops’  den  in 
order  to  recover  what  its  wild  inhabitants  deemed  to  be  theirs 
by  a right  at  least  as  sacred  as  his  ! The  chance  of  finding  his 
cattle  would  be  small,  and  his  chance  of  escaping  with  them  or 
with  his  life  would  be  smaller  still.  It  was  not  the  nature  of  the 
Punjabi  to  throw  away  good  money  after  bad,  and  so  the  great 
central  Doabs  were  pebpled,  like  the  Aventine  of  old,  by  hun- 
dreds of  Cacuses  who  had  never,  till  the  time  of  the  British  oc- 
cupation, found  any  reason  to  fear  a Hercules. 

How  did  the  Board  deal  with  these  districts  ? Round  the  city 
of  Peshawur  they  drew  cordon  upon  cordon  of  police  posts. 
They  filled  in  the  ravines  and  hollows  and  spread  a network  of 
roads  over  the  adjoining  district.  In  the  Doabs,  which  had 
never  yet  been  crossed  by  anything  but  a camel  track,  roads 
were  cut  in  various  directions,  mounted  patrols  of  police  sent 
along  them,  and,  more  important  than  all,  professional  trackers 
were  introduced — men  of  whose  amazing  skill  John  Lawrence 
had  again  and  again  availed  himself  in  the  pursuit  of  criminals 
at  Delhi,  at  Paniput,  and  at  Gorgaon  ; men  whose  senses  had 
been  sharpened  by  natural  or  artificial  selection  to  a preter- 
natural degree  of  acuteness  ; who  could  discern  a footprint,  in- 
visible to  the  ordinary  eye,  in  the  hardest  clay ; who  could 
follow  a track  of  harried  cattle  through  the  wildest  jungle  and 
the  roughest  grass  for,  perhaps,  some  fifty  miles,  naming  before- 
hand the  number  of  the  men  and  of  the  animals  in  the  party, 
till  at  last  they  carried  the  trail  triumphantly  to  some  remote 
encampment,  where  their  uncanny  skill  was  proved  to  ocular 
demonstration. 

But  cattle-stealing  was  by  no  means  the  worst  crime  with 


268 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


which  the  Board  had  to  deal.  Dacoity,  or  robbery  in  gangs,  had 
been  bound  up  with  the  whole  course  of  Punjab  history.  The 
Sikhs  had  been  cradled  in  it  ; it  had  grown  with  their  growth  ; 
and,  as  in  many  analogous  periods  of  European  history,  it  was 
the  most  successful  gang  robber  who,  after  winning  by  his 
trusty  sword  large  quantities  of  money  or  of  cattle,  usually 
ended  by  carving  out  for  himself,  in  much  the  same  manner, 
broad  estates  or  powerful  principalities.  The  leader  of  a band 
of  free  lances  had  thus  little  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  his  occupa- 
tion. The  bluest  blood  to  be  found  in  the  Punjab  often  flowed 
^in  his  veins,  and  his  profession  did  as  much  honour  to  him  as 
he  to  his  profession.  Kept  within  bounds  by  the  strong  hands 
of  Runjeet  Sing,  or  rather  given  ample  occupation  by  his 
foreign  conquests,  Dacoity  had  taken  a new  lease  of  life  in  the 
anarchy  which  followed  his  death  ; and  when  his  army  was  final- 
ly broken  up  by  us,  it  was  only  natural  that  the  bolder  spirits 
who  could  not,  or  would  not,  enter  our  service  should  betake 
themselves  to  so  time-honoured  a practice.  The  districts  of 
Lahore  and  Umritsur  began  to  swarm  with  them.  But  strong 
precautions  and  wholesome  severity  soon  checked  the  evil.  Dur- 
ing the  first  year  thirty-seven  Dacoits  were  condemned  to  death 
in  Umritsur  alone ; in  the  second  year  the  number  fell  to  seven  ; 
and  in  a few  years  more  the  crime  ceased  to  exist  throughout 
the  Punjab. 

But  there  was  a more  insidious  crime,  the  existence  of  which 
seems  at  first  to  have  been  quite  unsuspected  in  the  Punjab. 
The  prevalence  of  Thuggee  in  other  parts  of  India  had  only 
been  discovered  a few  years  previously.  But  the  weird  practices 
connected  with  it,  the  religious  initiation,  the  patient  plotting, 
the  cool  cruelty,  the  consummate  skill,  and  the  professional  en- 
thusiasm of  the  actors,  had  already  given  to  it  a world-wide  cel- 
ebrity. Colonel  Sleeman  had  tracked  its  mysteries  through  all 
their  windings,  and  Colonel  Meadows  Taylor  has,  since  then, 
laid  them  bare  to  the  world  in  a well-known  story,  which  does 
not  overstate  the  facts  of  the  case.- 

The  discovery  of  corpses  by  the  side  of  wells  or  in  the  jungles 
after  the  Dacoits  had  pretty  well  been  exterminated,  first  aroused 
a suspicion  that  other  confraternities  of  death  might  be  found 
within  our  limits.  Dead  men  tell  no  tales,  and  the  Thugs  of 
Hindustan  had  been  much  too  skilful  ever  to  leave  their  work 
half  done.  No  half-throttled  traveller  had  ever  escaped  from 
their  hands  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  fellow-travellers  who  had  joined 


849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


2C9 


him  on  his  road,  had  wormed  themselves  into  his  confidence,  had 
questioned  him  of  his  welfare,  and  then,  as  he  sat  at  food  with 
them  by  the  wayside,  had,  with  one  twist  of  the  fatal  handker- 
chief, given,  or  rather  all  but  given,  him  a short  shrift.  But 
the  Punjab  Thug  was  a mere  bungler  in  his  business.  The  fine 
art  had  only  recently  been  imported  into  his  country  from  Hin- 
dustan, and  its  first  professor  had  been  discovered  and  straight- 
way hung  up  by  Runjeet  Sing.  1 1 is  successors  often  made  up 
for  their  want  of  skill  in  the  use  of  the  handkerchief  by  hacking 
their  victim  to  pieces  with  their  swords,  and  then,  instead  of  pitch- 
ing his  body,  still  warm,  into  the  grave  which  they  had  opened 
while  he  was  talking  to  them,  they  often  carelessly  left  it  to  rot 
by  the  wayside.  At  last  a Brahmin,  who  had  been  two-thirds 
strangled  and  left  for  dead,  recovered  and  told  his  tale.  The  clue 
was  followed  up.  Rewards  were  offered  for  the  detection  of 
Thugs,  a free  pardon  was  promised  to  those  who  might  turn 
Queen’s  evidence,  and  a special  officer  was  appointed  for  the  in- 
vestigation. A list  of  recent  victims,  two  hundred  and  sixty-four 
in  number,  was  soon  given  in  by  approvers.  A second  list  of 
professional  Thugs,  given  in  by  the  same  authorities,  was  pub- 
lished and  posted  everywhere.  Many  of  these  were  apprehended, 
and  their  confessions  taken.  Others  disappeared  altogether. 
The  approver  would  often  conduct  the  British  officer  for  miles 
through  the  jungle  without  any  apparent  clue  which  could 
guide  him  in  his  search  or  refresh  his  memory.  ‘ Dig  here,’ 
‘ Dig  there,’  he  would  say,  as  he  came  to  a sudden  stop  in  his 
tortuous  course  ; and  the  turning  up  of  a few  spadesful  of  soil 
revealed  the  corpse  or  the  skeleton  of  one  of  his  victims.  Along 
one  bit  of  by-path  fifty-three  graves  were  thus  opened  and  were 
all  found  to  be  tenanted.  One  Thug  was  questioned  as  to  the 
number  of  his  victims.  His  professional  pride  was  touched, 
and  with  true  enthusiasm  he  replied,  ‘ How  can  I tell  ? Do  you 
remember,  Sahib,  every  animal  you  have  killed  in  the  chase  ? 
Thuggee  is  our  sport,  our  shikar  ! ’ 1 

The  Thugs  of  the  Punjab  were  found  to  belong  chiefly  to 
the  Muzbi  or  sweeper  caste.  They  were  as  superstitious  as  they 
were  bungling  and  cruel.  A cry  of  a bird  or  beast  of  ill-omen 
could  turn  from  its  purpose  a heart  which  no  pang  of  pity  or  of 
remorse  could  ever  reach.  A thousand  of  these  Muzbis  paid 
within  a few  years  the  penalty  of  their  misdeeds.  They  had 


1 Arnold's  Dalhousie,  vol.  i.  p.  259. 


270 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


been  treated  by  the  Sikhs  as  outcasts,  and  it  is  little  wonder  if 
they  soon  became  so.  It  was  the  noble  object  of  the  Punjab 
Board,  if  they  could  not  overcome  the  sentiment  which  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  the  caste  feeling,  at  least  to  make  the  existence 
of  those  miserable  creatures  more  tolerable,  and  by  a strict  sys- 
tem of  supervision  and  of  employment  to  turn  them  into  decent 
members  of  society.  They  were  employed  for  several  years  to 
come  on  those  two  great  material  triumphs  of  the  Punjab  Ad- 
ministration, to  be  described  hereafter — the  Bari  Doab  Canal 
and  the  Grand  Trunk  Road.  And  in  the  Mutiny,  when  a cry 
was  raised  at  Delhi  for  sappers  and  miners,  it  was  these  self- 
same outcasts  who  were  selected  by  John  Lawrence  for  the 
purpose,  and  who  did  admirable  service  to  our  cause  both  at 
Delhi  and  at  Lucknow.  To  have  reclaimed  these  men,  and  to 
have  put  down  for  ever,  in  a marvellously  short  space  of  time, 
two  such  evils  as  Dacoity  and  Thuggee,  is  no  slight  credit  to 
the  Punjab  Board,  and  no  slight  gain  to  the  cause  of  humanity. 

A cognate  subject,  and  one  which  would  naturally  come  next 
to  the  suppression  of  Dacoity  and  Thuggee,  is  that  of  female 
infanticide.  But  of  this  I have  already  said  something,  and  its 
suppression  in  the  four  Doabs  belongs  rather  to  the  Chief-Com- 
missionership  of  John  Lawrence,  who  had  been  the  first  to 
strike  a blow  at  it  in  the  Jullundur  Doab,  than  to  the  period  of 
the  Board. 

In  dealing  with  the  subject  of  crime,  the  Lawrence  brothers 
did  not  lose  sight  of  the  secondary  object  of  punishment — the 
reformation  of  the  criminal.  • Runjeet’s  simple  alternative  of 
fine  or  mutilation  had  certainly  never  been  open  to  the  charge 
of  overstocking  his  prisons.  His  system  had  placed  not  more 
than  two  hundred  criminals  in  durance.  Ours  was  to  place  ten 
thousand.  But  these,  instead  of  being  mutilated,  or  chained  to 
a post  in  the  streets,  or  placed  at  the  bottom  of  a dry  well,  were 
subjected  to  a system  of  strict  discipline  indeed,  and  hard  work, 
but  were  decently  clothed,  fed,  and  housed,  and  were  taught 
the  rudiments  of  education,  and  of  a trade.  New  jails,  twenty- 
five  in  number,  of  different  sizes  and  models,  were  erected  in 
the  different  districts  of  the  Punjab  Board.  The  great  central 
jail  at  Lahore  was  built  on  the  newest  model  with  a view  to 
economy  and  health,  as  well  as  the  supervision,  the  classifica- 
tion, and  the  moral  improvement  of  the  prisoners.  Thus  John 
Lawrence  was  able,  with  the  energetic  help  of  Dr.  Charles 
Hathaway,  who  was  now  appointed  Inspector  of  Prisons,  to 


I 849-S 2 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


271 


carry  out  the  improvements  in  the  system  which  he  had  long 
since  indicated  as  desirable. 

As  regards  legislation,  the  customs  of  the  natives  were,  as 
far  as  possible,  taken  as  the  basis  of  the  law.  The  Board  knew 
well,  as  one  of  the  sages  of  antiquity  has  remarked,  that  ‘good 
customs  are  of  even  greater  importance  than  good  laws,’  in 
fact,  that  the  one  are  only  efficacious  in  so  far  as  they  are  the 
outcome  and  the  representative  of  the  other.  Accordingly,  a 
code  of  native  customs  was  drawn  up.  Those  which  were  ab- 
solutely bad  and  seemed  to  be  incapable  of  improvement  were 
forbidden.  Those  which  related  to  marriage  and  divorce,  and 
tended,  as  they  do  in  most  Eastern  countries,  to  the  degrada- 
tion of  the  female  sex,  were  first  modified  and  then  accepted. 
Those  which  related  to  such  subjects  as  inheritance  and  adop- 
tion were  incorporated  at  once.  The  tahsildars,  whose  local 
knowledge  marked  them  out  as  the  best  judges  of  local  matters 
of  small  importance,  were  confirmed  in  their  judicial  as  they 
had  already  been  in  their  police  authority.  Each  village,  or 
group  of  adjoining  villages,  thus  retained  a court  of  its  own, 
sanctioned  by  immemorial  custom,  and  though  the  right  of  ap- 
peal to  the  Deputy-Commissioner  was  reserved,  yet  a large 
portion  of  all  matters  in  dispute  could  always  be  settled  within 
its  precincts.  It  should  be  added,  that  the  English  officers  of 
all  grades  were  bound  by  the  spirit  rather  than  by  the  letter  of 
the  regulations,  and  all  acted  on  the  principle  so  dearly  cher- 
ished in  the  East,  that,  if  it  is  not  possible  to  eliminate  all  mis- 
takes in  the  administration  of  justice,  it  is  at  least  possible  to 
avoid  undue  delays. 

But  none  of  these  reforms  could  be  accomplished  without  a 
proper  settlement  of  the  revenue,  and  in  particular  of  that  item 
on  which  it  mainly  depends — the  land-tax.  The  land-tax  is 
that  varying  share  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  which  is  claimed 
by  Government  as  its  own.  Under  native  governments  it  is 
generally  paid  in  kind,  and  is  levied,  harvest  by  harvest,  by  ill- 
paid  officials,  who  are  apt  to  take  too  little  from  the  cultivator 
if  he  bribes  them  sufficiently,  too  much  if  he  does  not.  And  in 
either  case  a large  part  of  the  amount,  instead  of  finding  its 
way  into  the  coffers  of  the  State,  stops  short  in  the  pocket  of 
the  tax-gatherers.  Under  the  system  introduced  by  the  Eng- 
lish, a low  average  of  the  produce  of  a district  was  taken  on 
the  returns  of  several  years  together,  and  then  the  money  value 
of  the  Government  share  was  taken  at  another  low  average  of 


2J2 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


current  prices.  All  parties  gained  by  this  arrangement,  but 
most  of  all  the  cultivator  himself.  The  saving  was  great  in 
every  way ; for  the  estimate  was  taken  once  in  ten,  twenty,  or 
thirty  jears,  instead  of  twice  or  three  times  in  one  year,  while 
extortion  and  other  abuses  were  rendered  almost  impossible. 
If  the  English  Government  had  conferred  no  other  benefit  on 
India  than  this,  it  would  have  done  much  to  justify  its  exist- 
ence. 

Now  what  was  the  financial  condition  of  the  Punjab  when  it 
passed  from  Runjeet’s  representative  to  the  Board  ? So  great 
an  advance  had  already  been  made  by  the  Lawrences  in  the 
time  of  the  Residency  from  the  rough-and-ready  methods  of 
Runjeet  Sing,  that  the  Board  had  rather  to  develop  what  had 
been  begun  than  to  start  afresh.  In  the  Trans-Sutlej  division 
— not  to  speak  again  of  the  summary  settlement  so  well  carried 
out  there  by  John  Lawrence — a careful  survey  of  the  land  and 
a settlement  of  its  revenue  for  thirty  years  had  been  set  on  foot 
and  was  already  far  advanced  towards  completion.  In  large 
portions  of  the  Punjab  proper  summary  settlements  had  also 
been  made,  and  all  that  was  required  was  that  these  should  be 
modified  where  mistakes  had  been  discovered,  and  that  the  re- 
maining portions  should  be  dealt  with  in  like  manner.  These 
settlements,  dealing  as  they  did  with  a country  which  was  as 
yet  so  imperfectly  known,  were  to  last  for  periods  of  not  less 
than  three,  or  of  more  than  ten,  years. 

The  varieties  of  land  tenure  were  numerous  and  complicated, 
but  they  were  time-honoured  ; and  it  was  the  honourable  mis- 
sion of  the  Board  in  no  case  to  destroy,  but  only  to  revivify 
and  to  preserve.  The  land-tax  had  in  Runjeet’s  time  amounted 
to  half  the  gross  produce,  and  had,  generally,  been  paid  in 
kind.  This  payment  in  kind — not  without  strong  protests  on 
the  part  of  the  tax-payers — was  abolished  by  us,  and  its  amount 
reduced  to  a half  or  to  a quarter  of  what  it  had  been  before. 
Nor  did  the  State  suffer  much  by  the  remission,  for  the  reve- 
nues of  Mooltan,  which  had  become  an  integral  part  of  the  Pun- 
jab, and  of  other  outlying  parts,  were  flowing  freely  into  our 
Treasury,  and  our  receipts  were  further  swollen  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  illicit  profits  of  the  tax-collectors,  and  by  the  confis- 
cation of  the  property  of  rebellious  jagheerdars. 

I have  already  alluded  in  my  account  of  the  Jullundur  Doab 
to  this  difficult  question  of  the  treatment  of  jagheers  and  of 
other  alienations  of  the  State  revenues.  It  was  the  question  on 


1 849—52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


273 


which  the  Lawrence  brothers  differed  most,  and,  as  it  was  to 
have  an  important  bearing  on  the  future  of  each,  I reserve  its 
further  consideration  for  the  next  chapter,  which,  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  will  be  as  distinctly  biographical  as  this  is,  in 
the  main,  historical. 

The  financial  policy  of  the  Board  was  liberal  throughout. 
The  forty-seven  articles  taxed  by  the  lynx-eyed  Runjeet  had 
already  been  cut  down  to  twenty  by  Henry  Lawrence  ; but  to 
secure  the  Dayment  even  of  this  diminished  number  of  duties, 
it  had  been  found  necessary  to  retain  Runjeet’s  cordon  of  pre- 
ventive lines  all  round  the  frontier.  Transit  duties  and  tolls 
had  been  levied  by  Runjeet  at  every  possible  point  within  the 
Punjab.  A piece  of  merchandise  crossing  the  country  had  to 
pay  duty  some  twelve  times  over!  On  January  x,  1850 — only 
ten  months,  that  is,  after  annexation — all  town  and  transit  dues, 
all  export  and  import  duties,  were  swept  away.  The  preven- 
tive frontier  line  was  abolished  and  trade  was  left  free  to  flow 
in  its  natural  channels.  To  balance  these  reductions,  an  ex- 
cise, desirable  in  every  point  of  view,  was  levied  on  spirits  ; 
stamp  duties  were  introduced  ; toll  at  the  chief  ferries  over 
the  large  rivers  were  authorised  ; and  a tax — necessary  un- 
der the  circumstances,  but  not  theoretically  free  from  objec- 
tion, since  it  was  laid  on  a necessity  of  life — was  imposed  on 
salt.  The  vast  stores  of  this  mineral  to  be  found  in  the  Salt 
range  were  henceforward  to  be  managed  by  Government  itself; 
and  to  render  the  revenue  accruing  from  it  secure,  the  impor- 
tation of  salt  from  all  neighbouring  districts  was  prohibited.  It 
was  the  one  blot  on  an  otherwise  excellent  fiscal  system.  But 
the  natives  did  not  object  to  it,  and  found  it  no  burden. 

If  the  prosperity  of  the  country  did  not  seem  to  increase 
with  a bound  as  the  result  of  all  these  arrangements,  it  was  not 
the  fault  of  the  Government  but  of  circumstances  which  were 
beyond  its  control.  There  were  three  rich  harvests  after  annex- 
ation. The  soldiers  of  the  Khalsa  betook  themselves  to  the 
plough  or  to  the  spade ; and  agriculture,  encouraged  by  the 
lowered  land-tax,  and  by  the  peace  and  security  of  the  country, 
spread  over  tracts  which  had  never  before  been  broken  up. 
There  was  thus  a glut  of  agricultural  produce  in  the  markets, 
while  there  was  as  yet  no  ready  means  of  disposing  of  it.  The 
cultivators  found  difficulty  in  paying  even  the  reduced  land- 
tax.  A cry  arose  for  further  remissions,  and  under  a Govern- 
ment which  was  generous,  but  not  lavish,  it  was  a cry  that  was 
Vol.  I. — 18 


274 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


not  raised  in  vain.  Thus,  the  discontent  which  was  the  acci 
dental  result  of  the  improved  condition  of  the  country  tended 
to  make  the  inhabitants  more  prosperous  still.  Happy  the 
country  and  happy  the  people  that  were  in  such  a case  ! 

I have  spoken  of  the  jails  erected  by  the  Board  throughout 
the  Punjab,  and  of  the  line  of  forts  along  its  western  frontier  ; 
but  there  were  other  public  buildings  and  other  public  works, 
which,  if  they  were  less  urgently  required  at  the  outset  of  our 
rule,  were  not  less  essential  for  its  permanence  and  its  success. 
What  we  vaguely  call  1 the  development  of  the  resources  of  the 
country  ’ — a country  in  some  parts  so  blessed  by  nature  and  so 
neglected  by  man — required  a department,  or  at  least  a ruling 
spirit,  to  itself  ; and  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  had  promised  Henry 
Lawrence  to  give  him  ‘ the  best  men  in  the  country,’  was  true 
to  his  word  in  this  as  in  other  particulars.  For  he  gave  him  as 
‘ Civil  Engineer  ’ the  best  man  who  could  have  been  found  at 
that  time,  perhaps  the  best  who  could  be  found  at  any  time,  in 
India,  for  the  purpose.  Colonel  Robert  Napier  had  acted  as 
Consulting  Engineer  to  Henry  Lawrence  during  the  Residency, 
he  had  traversed  the  country  for  himself  from  end  to  end,  and 
was  well  acquainted  with  its  capabilities  and  its  wants.  More 
than  this,  he  was  a man  of  vast  ideas.  He  had  something  in 
him  of  the  ‘ great-souled  ’ man  of  Aristotle — the  beau  ideal , as 
the  whole  of  his  subsequent  career  has  proved  him  to  be,  of 
chivalry  and  generosity.  If  a thing  was  to  be  done  well,  and 
without  a too  close  calculation  of  the  cost,  Napier  was  the  man 
to  do  it.  His  ideas  found  expression  in  those  splendid  public 
works  which  are  the  pride  of  the  Punjab,  and  are  still  a model 
for  the  rest  of  India. 

An  efficient  staff  was  placed  at  Napier’s  disposal  ; first  and 
foremost  Lieutenant  Alexander  Taylor,  whose  name  will  come 
before  us  in  more  than  one  striking  scene  hereafter,  and  who 
was  able  to  secure  the  warm  affection  of  men  so  widely  differ- 
ent from  each  other  as  Napier  and  Nicholson,  as  Henry  and 
John  Lawrence.  Funds  fairly  adequate  to  the  occasion  were 
placed  at  the  Chief  Engineer’s  disposal,  and  special  grants  were 
to  be  made  for  works  of  imperial  magnitude,  such  as  the  Grand 
Trunk  Road  and  the  great  canals.  But  roads  and  canals  are 
not  made  in  a day,  and,  in  such  matters,  the  work  of  the  Board 
was,  necessarily,  one  of  preparation  rather  than  of  completion, 
of  struggles  under  difficulties  rather  than  of  victory  over  them. 
Yet,  even  in  this  early  period,  roads  were  not  only  projected 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


275 


and  surveyed,  but  were  actually  constructed.  In  the  map  pre- 
pared in  Napier’s  office  and  appended  to  the  first  Punjab  re- 
port, a perfect  network  of  roads — military  roads,  roads  for  ex- 
ternal and  internal  commerce,  cross  and  branch  roads  in  every 
direction — some  of  them  merely  proposed  or  surveyed,  others 
traced  or  completed,  may  be  seen  spreading  over  the  country, 
like  the  veins  and  arteries  over  the  human  body. 

A single  sentence  of  this  same  Punjab  report,  a document  to 
which  my  brief  sketch  of  the  Punjab  administration  owes  much, 
thus  sums  up  what  had  been  done  in  the  way  of  road-making, 
during  the  first  three  years  of  our  possession  : ‘ 1,349  miles  of 
road,’  it  says,  ‘have  been  cleared  and  constructed;  853  miles 
are  under  construction,  2,487  miles  have  been  traced,  and  5,272 
miles  surveyed,  all  exclusive  of  minor  oross  and  branch  roads.' 
The  Romans  were  the  great  road-makers  of  antiquity,  and  it  is 
one  of  their  crowning  glories  that  they  were  so.  But  the  Grand 
Trunk  Road  from  Calcutta  to  Peshawur  may,  in  the  difficulties 
which  it  overcame,  in  the  way  it  overcame  them,  and  in  the 
benefits  it  has  conferred,  challenge  comparison  with  the  great- 
est triumphs  of  Roman  engineering  skill,  with  the  Appian  Way, 
which  united  Rome  with  Brundusium,  and  the  Flaminian, 
which  united  it  with  Ariminum.  Nor  need  the  character  and 
career  of  Robert  Napier  shrink  from  comparison  with  all  that 
is  best  either  in  that  of  the  great  censor  Appius,  or  of  the  Con- 
sul Flaminius,  the  generous  foe  of  aristocratic  privilege  and 
chicanery,  and  the  constructor  of  the  splendid  Circus  and  the 
Road  which  immortalise  his  name. 

More  had  been  done  by  previous  governments  for  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Punjab  in  the  way  of  canals  than  in  that  of  roads. 
The  Moguls,  who  Avere  magnificent  in  all  they  undertook,  had 
especially  distinguished  themselves  in  this  particular.  The 
Mooltan  district  had  been  intersected  with  canals,  and  the  na- 
tive system,  which  compelled  each  village  to  pay  its  share  of 
labour,  or  of  money,  towards  keeping  them  in  repair  was  found 
by  Napier  to  be  so  fair  and  efficacious  that  he  was  content  to 
‘leave  well  alone.’  In  the  north  of  the  Bari  Doab,  again,  a 
canal  known  as  the  Husli  or  Shah-i-nahr,  ‘ the  royal  canal,’  had 
been  carried  from  the  point  where  the  Ravi  leaves  the  moun- 
tains— a distance  of  no  miles — -to  Lahore.  It  was  a grand 
work.  But  it  fertilised  no  wastes  and  called  into  existence  no 
villages.  It  simply  supplied  the  royal  waterworks,  conserva- 
tories, and  fountains  at  the  palace  of  Lahore.  Accordingly, 


2 y6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


another  great  work  was  proposed  by  the  Board,  which  is  as 
characteristic  of  the  aims  of  the  English  Government  in  India 
as  the  Husli  Canal  had  been  of  the  Native.  Starting  from  pre- 
cisely the  same  point  in  the  Ravi — as  though  to  emphasise  the 
contrast — a canal  was  projected,  which,  passing  near  the  cities 
of  Denanuggur,  Puttiala,  and  Umritsur,  should  traverse  the 
whole  length  of  the  Bari  Doab,  should  send  forth  from  the 
upper  part  of  its  course,  into  districts  which  specially  needed 
it,  three  branches,  each  of  them  from  sixty  to  eighty  miles 
long  ; should  refill  the  empty  reservoirs  and  the  disused  water- 
courses of  the  great  southern  waste,  calling  into  existence  every- 
where new  villages,  and  resuscitating  those  which  had  fallen 
into  decay,  till,  after  a course  of  247  miles,  it  rejoined  the  Ravi 
above  Mooltan.  The  new  canal  would  necessarily  be  the  work 
of  many  years,  but  it  was  begun  in  faith,  and  was  all  but  ac- 
complished in  the  Chief  Commissionership  of  John  Lawrence. 
The  ‘father  of  history,’  in  his  ever  fresh  and  vivid  account  of 
Egypt,  struck  by  the  wonder-working  power  of  its  life-giving 
river,  invests  it  with  personality  throughout.  The  whole  land 
of  Egypt  is,  he  says,  ‘the  gift  of  the  river’  ; the  river  is  ‘indus- 
trious,’ ‘benevolent,’  ‘takes  this  or  that  into  its  head,’  ‘wills 
this  or  does  not  will  ’ that.  But  the  terms  in  which  Herodotus 
speaks  of  the  river  Nile  and  of  the  indwelling  river-god  he 
might  have  applied  now,  with  a hardly  greater  infusion  of  met- 
aphor, to  the  rivers  of  the  Punjab  and  to  the  philanthropic 
statesmen  who,  by  means  of  scores  of  canals  and  hundreds  of 
watercuts  and  watercourses,  have  so  twisted  and  turned  them 
as  to  revivify  deserts  and  to  scatter  plenty  over  a comparatively 
smiling  land. 

I have  now  glanced  at  the  most  important  subjects  which 
called  for  the  immediate  attention  of  the  Board.  But  there 
were  others  of  which  less  energetic  rulers  would  have  postponed 
all  consideration  till  the  pressure  upon  them  was  less  intense. 
The  diversity  of  the  coinages  of  the  country  was  one  difficulty 
which  presented  itself  ; the  diversity  of  languages  a second  ; 
the  diversity  of  weights  and  measures  a third.  The  want  of  a 
system  of  education  and  of  a system  of  agriculture  ; the  want 
of  forest  trees,  of  sanitary  measures,  and  of  sanataria, — all  these 
subjects  demanded  and  received  their  due  share  of  attention. 
A few  lines  on  each  of  them  must  suffice,  in  order  to  complete 
the  outline  of  the  Lawrence  brothers’  administration. 

In  the  strange  intermixture  of  coinages  and  languages  to  be 


1849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD.  277 

found  in  the  Punjab,  it  would  be  possible  to  trace  the  successive 
waves  of  foreign  conquest  and  the  internal  convulsions  which 
have  passed  over  the  country.  To  coin  money  is  the  attribute 
of  kingly  power  everywhere,  but  nowhere  so  exclusively  as  in 
the  East.  Accordingly,  the  first  thing  which  any  conqueror  or 
upstart  provisional  governor  does,  is  to  strike  off  a coinage  of 
his  own.  Thus  it  came  about  that  in  the  Leia  Division  alohe 
twenty-eight  different  coins  were  found  to  be  in  circulation,  and 
that  the  rupee  of  Kashmere  was  worth  barely  two-thirds  of  that 
of  the  Company,  while  this  last,  again,  was  inferior  in  purity 
and  value  to  the  old  Nanuk  Shahi  rupee,  the  symbol  of  the 
Sikh  religion  and  power,  which  was  coined  at  Umritsur  and  La- 
hore. Nor  was  this  the  worst ; for  of  the  Nanuk  Shahi  rupee 
itself  there  were  not  less  than  thirty  varieties  in  circulation  ! 
The  commercial  confusion,  the  illicit  gains,  the  losses  on  ex- 
change resulting  from  such  a state  of  things  can  be  imagined. 
All  the  illiterate  classes  must  have  suffered,  and  only  the  coiners, 
the  money-changers,  and,  possibly,  the  Sirdars,  have  thriven. 
Here  was  a case  for  prompt  interference  on  our  part.  The 
dead  coinages  were  called  in.  They  were  sent  to  Bombay  and 
Calcutta  to  be  melted  down,  and  their  equivalent  was  remitted 
to  the  Punjab,  stamped  with  the  mark,  not  of  the  Great  Guru, 
or  the  Great  Mogul,  but  of  the  English  Queen.  The  coinage 
of  the  country  was  thus  made  to  harmonise  with  accomplished 
facts,  and,  within  three  years,  three-fourths  of  the  whole  revenue 
paid  into  the  British  treasury  was  found  to  be  in  British  coin. 

The  languages  of  the  Punjab  were  equally  confusing.  The 
Gourmooki,  or  sacred  language  of  the  Grunth,  or  Sikh  scrip- 
tures, was,  like  Sanskrit,  written  rather  than  spoken.  But  there 
was  a sufficient  variety  of  spoken  languages.  In  the  two  west- 
ernmost Doabs,  Persian,  or  dialects  derived  from  it,  were  cur- 
rent ; in  the  easternmost,  Punjabi,  a corrupt  form  of  Urdu.  In 
one  of  the  Indus  districts,  Pushtu  was  spoken  ; in  another  Bel- 
uchi.  The  difficulty  of  establishing  a settled  government  and 
administering  justice  amidst  this  Babel  of  languages  was  great. 
But  it  would  hardly  have  been  lessened  by  any  arbitrary  attempt 
— letting  alone  the  question  of  its  justice — to  force,  as  the  Rus- 
sians have  done  in  Poland,  any  one  official  language  upon  the 
whole.  An  arrangement  was  ultimately  come  to  that  Urda 
should  be  the  official  language  of  the  eastern  and  Persian  of  the 
western  half  of  the  Punjab,  and  this  compromise  has  been  found 
to  work  well. 


278 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


As  regards  education,  the  work  of  the  first  three  years  was 
chiefly  preparatory.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  ascertain 
what  steps  had  been  taken  by  natives  in  that  direction  ; and 
Robert  Montgomery — a name  mentioned  here  for  the  first  time 
in  connection  with  the  Punjab,  but,  henceforward,  almost  as 
closely  bound  up  with  it  as  that  of  the  Lawrences  themselves — 
threw  himself  into  the  work  with  alacrity.  To  his  surprise  and 
pleasure,  it  was  discovered  that  throughout  the  Punjab  there 
were  elementary  schools  for  all  classes,  Sikh,  Mussulman,  and 
Hindu  ; that  the  agricultural  classes,  unlike  those  of  other  parts 
of  India,  resorted  to  them  in  at  least  as  large  numbers  as  the 
higher  castes,  Rajpoots,  Brahmins,  or  Khuttries  ; and,  more  re- 
markable still,  that  even  female  education,  which  is  quite  un- 
known in  other  parts  of  the  peninsula,  was  not  altogether  neg- 
lected. In  Lahore,  for  instance,  there  were  sixteen  schools  for 
girls,  with  an  average  of  six  scholars  in  each,  and,  what  is  still 
more  noteworthy,  all  of  them  were  Muslims.  In  fact,  there 
was  a general  desire  for  education.  The  standard  aimed  at  in 
these  native  schools  was,  of  course,  not  high.  The  staple  of  the 
education  was  the  reading  and  recitation  of  the  sacred  volume 
accepted  by  each  creed,  supplemented  by  a little  writing  and 
arithmetic— enough,  at  all  events,  to  enable  the  Sikh  to  calculate 
his  compound  interest  with  accuracy,  and  to  make  him  a good 
village  accountant.  The  buildings  were  of  the  most  primitive 
kind.  A temporary  shed  or  tent,  or  the  enclosure  of  some 
mosque  or  temple,  sufficed  for  the  purpose.  Sometimes  there 
was  nothing  but  the  shade  of  a spreading  tree.  The  stipend  of 
the  teacher  was  precarious  enough,  and  was  eked  out  by  pres- 
ents of  grain  or  sweetmeats  from  the  pupils  or  their  parents. 
The  members  of  the  Board  were  unable  at  this  early  date  to 
elaborate  any  extensive  educational  schemes,  but  they  scrupu- 
lously respected  all  existing  educational  endowments,  and  they 
proposed  to  found  a central  school  in  each  city  of  the  Pun- 
jab. That  at  Umritsur  was  of  a more  ambitious  character.  It 
was  to  be  divided  into  as  many  departments  as  there  were  relig- 
ions or  languages  in  the  country.  By  the  end  of  the  second 
year  after  annexation  it  contained  153,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  year  308,  scholars.  A race  of  young  Punjabis,  it  was 
hoped,  were  thus  being  trained  up  who  might  be  trusted  with 
the  more  or  less  important  posts  under  Government  which  were 
then  in  the  hands  of  Hindustanis. 

The  want  of  forest  trees  was  met,  so  far  as  it  could  be  so,  by 


849-52  THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


279 


orders  that  all  existing  forests  should  be  carefully  preserved, 
that  groves  should  be  planted  round  public  buildings,  at  inter- 
vals along  the  main  lines  of  road,  and  in  continuous  lines 
throughout  the  course  of  the  great  canals.  Thus  some  shade 
and  timber  were  secured  for  coming  generations,  while,  with  a 
view  to  firewood,  which  is  all-important  in  a country  destitute 
of  coal,  the  vast  jungles,  whence  the  woodcutters  used,  with 
reckless  improvidence,  to  tear  up  whole  bushes,  were  to  be  re- 
planted and  carefully  tended.  The  famous  grass  preserves,  the 
best  of  whose  produce  had  been  appropriated  by  the  very  Sirdars 
who  were  paid  to  look  after  them,  while  Runjeet’s  cavalry,  for 
which  they  were  intended,  got  only  the  refuse,  were  committed 
to  the  care  of  a special  English  officer,  Edward  Prinsep,  who 
took  measures  that  the  State  should,  henceforward,  get  its 
own. 

The  proper  rotation  of  crops  was  a subject  little  understood, 
and  less  practised,  by  a people  who,  careless  of  the  future,  are 
content  if  they  can  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  and,  when  they 
can  no  longer  do  that,  are  only  too  content  to  die.  It  was  ob- 
served that  one  of  the  first  results  of  the  remission  of  taxation 
was  that  cereals  were  planted  everywhere  by  the  short  sighted 
cultivators  of  the  ground.  There  was,  consequently,  a glut  in 
the  market  of  this  kind  of  produce,  while  the  land  itself  suffered 
proportionately.  To  meet  this  evil,  cotton,  tobacco,  flax,  sugar- 
cane and  root  crops  were  introduced  on  an  extensive  scale  into 
the  Punjab,  by  the  direct  intervention  of  the  Board,  and  with 
great  success.  The  country  was  already  well  stocked  with  mul- 
berry-trees, and  the  cultivation  of  the  silkworm,  which  was  en- 
couraged by  the  Board,  soon  gave  it  a silk  trade  of  its  own. 
Fifty  new  species  of  forest  trees  were  planted  in  the  tracts  set 
apart  for  woodlands,  and  the  tea-plant,  which  had  been  intro- 
duced by  Thomason  and  his  assistants  into  the  North-Western 
Provinces,  was  now  introduced  into  the  Murri  hills  and  the 
slopes  of  the  far-famed  Kangra  valley.  A new  region  was  thus 
thrown  open  to  a new  commerce,  and  to  a commerce  which, 
unlike  that  of  opium,  is  of  a wholly  unobjectionable  kind. 

In  the  unadulterated  East,  sanitary  precautions  are  entirely 
neglected.  The  streets  of  even  splendid  cities  are  unpaved, 
undrained,  and  uncleansed.  The  carcasses  of  animals  are  left 
to  rot  where  they  die,  and  the  suburbs  are  worse  even  than  the 
cities.  They  are  veritable  Gehennas,  the  ‘heaps’  or  ‘mounds’ 
of  the  Bible,  and  form  the  invariable  surroundings  of  an  Eastern 


28o 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


town.  Hence  the  foul  air,  the  polluted  water,  the  frequent 
pestilences,  and,  when  once  the  European  has  introduced  the 
appalling  idea  of  statistics  to  the  Eastern  mind,  what  are  at 
length  discovered  to  be  still  more  appalling  death-rates  of  East- 
ern cities.  Lahore,  which  was  deemed  worthy  by  Milton  of  a 
place  in  the  world-wide  panorama  displayed  to  our  great  parent 
by  the  angel,  enjoyed  a bad  pre-eminence  in  these  respects. 
The  English  troops,  encamped  in  one  of  its  suburbs,  amidst  the 
dilapidated  houses  and  the  pestilential  deposits  of  successive 
generations,  were  the  first  to  feel  the  Nemesis  of  offended  nature. 
And  the  first  steps  towards  sanitary  improvement  only  made  the 
evil  worse.  Science  can  hardly  get  rid  of  the  germs  of  disease 
from  such  a hotbed  without  first  stirring  them  into  unwonted 
activity.  But  the  exertions  of  a few  years  procured  a clean  bill 
of  health  even  in  so  fever-haunted  a region.  Lahore  was  meta- 
morphosed, in  a sanitary  point  of  view,  by  the  exertions  of 
George  Macgregor,  and  Umritsur  by  those  of  C.  B.  Saunders, 
its  magistrate.  And  if,  as  was  inevitable,  they  both  lost  in  the 
process  something  of  the  charm  and  picturesqueness  of  an 
Eastern  city,  the  health  and  happiness  and  well-being  of  their  in- 
habitants were  vastly  increased. 

Nor  was  the  Board  content  to  be,  in  these  matters,  simply  a 
paternal  government.  It  has  often  been  said  that  the  best  pos- 
sible government  for  Orientals  is  a benevolent  despotism — a 
government,  that  is,  in  which  everything  is  done  for  the  people, 
and  nothing  by  them.  But  such  was  not  the  ideal  set  before 
themselves  by  the  Lawrences.  The  English  magistrate  was 
naturally  the  moving  spirit  in  each  city,  but  associated  with  him 
there  was  to  be  a Town  Council  elected  by  the  natives  from  their 
own  body,  and  when  once  the  first  impulse  had  been  given  they 
worked  with  a will  in  the  right  direction.  The  first  germs  of 
municipal  government  were  thus  planted  in  a not  altogether 
uncongenial  soil. 

The  establishment  of  sanataria  in  the  hills  proceeded  pari 
passu  with  the  sanitary  measures  taken  in  the  plains.  A sana- 
tarium  for  the  troops  quartered  at  the  great  stations  of  Pesha- 
wur,  Rawul  Pindi,  and  Jhelum  was  established  in  1851  on  the 
beautiful  hills  of  Murri.  It  is  a place  which  will  often  be  men- 
tioned in  this  biography,  for  it  was  amidst  its  cool  breezes,  dur- 
ing the  next  eight  years,  that  over-burdened  Punjab  officials 
snatched  the  hard-earned  period  of  comparative  repose  which 
might  fit  them  for  still  harder  work  to  come.  A second  sanata- 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


281 


rium,  intended  for  the  Punjab  Irregular  force,  was  built  on  the 
Budawodeen  Mount  across  the  Indus  ; and  a third,  intended  for 
the  cantonments  of  Lahore  and  Sealkote,  was  sought  and  found 
amidst  the  Chumba  hills.  .This  last,  on  the  proposal  of  the 
Lawrences,  took,  as  it  well  might,  the  name  of  the  Governor- 
General  under  whose  master-spirit  they  were  content  to  think 
and  work.  At  the  same  time,  dispensaries  were  established  at 
all  the  leading  stations  in  the  country.  The  superintendence 
of  these  institutions  was  to  be  confided  to  natives  who  had  re- 
ceived a European  education.  Eastern  patients  generally  have 
more  belief  in  amulets  and  incantations  than  in  drugs  and  pre- 
scriptions, and  when  we  remember  the  absolute  ignorance  of 
Eastern  practitioners,  we  may  well  think  it  fortunate  that  it  is 
so.  But  the  Punjabi  was  willing  to  take  from  a native  doctor 
drugs  which  he  would  have  refused  at  the  hand  of  a European  ; 
and  it  was  hoped  that,  when  he  had  once  convinced  himself  of 
the  good  to  be  got  from  European  medicines,  it  would  not  be 
long  before  he  was  able  to.trust  the  Europeans  also  who  pre- 
pared them. 

Of  the  smaller  benefits  conferred  on  the  Punjab,  such  as  a 
postal  system,  the  protection  given  to  natives  against  unfair 
impressment  of  their  draught  cattle  or  their  carts,  the  improved 
working  of  the  salt  mines,  the  care  taken  to  keep  in  repair  the 
historical  monuments  of  the  country,  it  is  unnecessary  here  to 
speak.  Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  Lawrences 
thought  nothing  to  be  above,  nothing  beneath,  their  notice  ; 
that  their  object  was  to  find  out  everything  which  could  be 
done,  never  to  find  excuses  for  leaving  anything  undone.  And 
if  any  of  the  details  to  which  I have  referred  in  this  general 
sketch  of  the  Punjab  administration  seem  to  any  one  to  be  of 
small  importance,  I answer  that  it  has  been  well  said  that  per- 
fection is  made  up  of  trifles,  but  that  perfection  itself  is  no 
trifle. 

It  only  remains  to  be  added  that  the  Punjab  ‘paid’:  an  all- 
important  consideration  this,  when  we  bear  in  mind  the  poverty 
of  the  inhabitants  of  India.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  the  bal- 
ance-sheet of  a great  empire  is  not  always  to  be  scrutinised  as 
though  it  were  the  balance-sheet  of  a commercial  firm,  and  that 
a heroic  disregard  of  finance  may,  occasionally,  prove  in  the  end 
to  be  not  only  the  truest  wisdom  but  the  best  economy.  But, 
owing  to  the  exertions  of  the  Board,  and  in  an  especial  degree, 
it  must  be  added,  to  the  financial  genius  of  John  Lawrence,  the 


282 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


administration  of  the  Punjab — even  when  the  task  before  it  was 
nothing  less  than  the  reconstruction  of  the  whole  country,  and 
when  that  reconstruction  was  proceeding  at  a railroad  pace — 
could  stand  the  strictest  of  commercial  tests.  Not  to  speak  of 
the  balance-sheets  of  the  first  three  years,  which  showed  a sur- 
plus of  fifty-two,  sixty-four,  and  seventy  lacs  of  rupees  respec- 
tively— for  this  surplus  was  in  part  the  result  of  the  confiscation 
of  jagheers,  and  of  the  sale  of  State  property — in  the  fourth  year, 
when  these  exceptional  receipts  had  almost  disappeared  and 
the  colossal  expense  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road  and  the  Great 
Canal  had  begun  to  make  itself  felt,  there  was  still  a surplus  of 
fifty-three  lacs.  The  Board  did  not  disguise  from  themselves 
or  from  their  superiors  that,  in  the  spirit  of  a munificent  and 
far-seeing  landlord,  they  contemplated  an  ever-increasing  ex- 
penditure during  the  next  ten  years  on  these  public  works. 
But,  with  just  confidence,  they  held  that  such  an  expenditure 
would  be  reproductive,  and  that  even  during  the  ten  years  of 
leanness  which  must  precede  many  decades  of  plenty,  there 
would  still  be  a surplus  of  twelve  lacs  per  annum.  These  anti- 
cipations, however  sanguine  they  might  seem,  were  justified  by 
the  result.  Constant  reductions  were  made  in  the  land  settle- 
ment and  yet  the  revenue  went  on  increasing.  The  134  lacs 
of  revenue  of  the  year  of  annexation  (1849)  had  risen  by  the 
year  of  the  Mutiny  (1857)  to  205  lacs.  In  that  year  of  agony 
the  Chief  Commissioner  not  only  raised  this  large  sum,  by 
methods  which  are  usually  practicable  only  in  the  time  of 
peace,  but  was  actually  able  from  the  surplus  to  send  off  twenty 
lacs  in  hard  cash  to  Delhi  ! 

It  was  to  little  purpose  that  the  critics  of  the  Punjab  admin- 
istration pointed  to  the  large  army  of  50,000  men  stationed 
within  the  limits  of  the  province,  and  insisted  that  the  whole 
expense  attending  it  should  be  charged  to  the  Punjab  account ; 
for  Lord  Dalhousie  triumphantly  retorted  that  the  military  force 
which  would  have  been  required  if  our  frontier  had  still  been 
the  Sutlej,  would  not  have  been  appreciably  less  than  that 
which  was  required  to  defend  the  line  of  the  Suliman  moun- 
tains. It  was  only  the  excess — an  excess  consisting,  as  he 
pointed  out,  of  not  more  than  two  European  regiments — which 
could  fairly  be  charged  to  the  Punjab  accounts. 

But  even  if  the  Punjab  had  not  ‘paid,’  it  would  still,  looking 
at  the  results  achieved,  have  been  an  extraordinary  success.  In 
this  very  imperfect  world  it  is  not  always,  nor  indeed  often,  that 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


283 


the  cost  of  a war  is  proportioned  to  its  justice  or  injustice.  But 
it  is  not  unsatisfactory  to  observe  that  the  two  Sikh  wars  which 
were  forced  upon  us,  and  were  essentially  defensive,  over  and 
above  the  enormous  moral  benefits  which  they  have  conferred 
upon  the  conquered  people,  have  proved  financially  also  a suc- 
cess ; while  the  two  Afghan  wars,  which  were  essentially  ag- 
gressive, and  which  history  has  already  branded  with  the  stamp 
of  egregious  folly  as  well  as  of  injustice,  have  proved  as  disas- 
trous financially  as  they  deserved  to  be.  The  finances  of  India, 
as  a whole,  have  hardly  yet  recovered  from  the  blunders  and 
the  crimes  of  the  first  Afghan  war.  When  will  they  recover 
from  the  second  ? 

I can  hardly  conclude  this  account  of  the  administration  of 
the  Punjab  Board  better  than  by  making  three  quotations — one 
from  the  last  paragraph  of  the  first  Punjab  report,  to  which  it 
owes  so  much  ; the  second  from  Lord  Dalhousie’s  comments 
upon  it ; and  the  third  from  the  reply  of  the  Directors  at  home. 

In  a spirit  of  just  self-appreciation,  equally  removed  front 
false  modesty  and  from  pride,  the  Board  thus  sum  up  their  la- 
bours for  the  past  and  their  hopes  for  the  future  : — 


The  Board  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth  the  administration  of  the 
Punjab  since  annexation,  in  all  its  branches,  with  as  much  succinctness 
as  might  be  compatible  with  precision  and  perspicuity.  It  has  been  ex- 
plained how  internal  peace  has  been  preserved,  and  the  frontier  guarded  ; 
how  the  various  establishments  of  the  State  have  been  organised  ; how 
violent  crime  has  been  repressed,  the  penal  law  executed,  and  prison 
discipline  enforced  ; how  civil  justice  has  been  administered  ; how  the 
taxation  has  been  fixed,  and  the  revenue  collected  ; how  commerce  has 
been  set  free,  agriculture  fostered,  and  the  national  resources  developed  ; 
how  plans  for  future  improvement  have  been  projected  ; and,  lastly,  how 
the  finances  have  been  managed.  The  Most  Noble  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral, who  has  seen  the  country  and  personally  inspected  the  executive 
system,  will  judge  whether  this  administration  has  fulfilled  the  wishes  of 
the  Government ; whether  the  country  is  richer  ; whether  the  people  are 
happier  and  better.  A great  revolution  cannot  happen  without  injuring 
some  classes.  When  a State  falls,  its  nobility  and  its  supporters  must, 
to  some  extent,  suffer  with  it ; a dominant  sect  and  party,  ever  moved 
by  political  ambition  and  religious  enthusiasm,  cannot  return  to  the  or- 
dinary level  of  society  and  the  common  occupations  of  life,  without  feel- 
ing some  discontent  and  some  enmity  against  their  powerful  but  humane 
conquerors.  But  it  is  probable  that  the  mass  of  the  people  will  advance 
in  material  prosperity  and  moral  elevation  under  the  influence  of  British 
rule.  The  Board  are  not  unmindful  that  in  conducting  the  administra- 


284 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


tion  they  have  had  before  them  the  Indian  experience  of  many  succes- 
sive Governments,  and  especially  the  excellent  example  displayed  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces.  They  are  not  insensible  of  shortcomings, 
but  they  will  yet  venture  to  say  that  this  retrospect  of  the  past  does  in- 
spire them  with  a hope  for  the  future. 

(Signed)  Henry  M.  Lawrence,  President. 

John  Lawrence,  Senior  Member. 

Robert  Montgomery,  Junior  Member. 

Lahore  : August  19,  1852. 


Lord  Dalhousie,  after  a lengthened  comment  on  the  report, 
writes  as  follows,  and  there  will  be  few  who  will  not  endorse 
this  deliberate  judgment  : — 

For  this  prosperous  and  happy  result,  the  Honourable  Company  is 
mainly  indebted  to  the  members  of  the  Board  of  Administration — Sir 
Henry  Lawrence,  Mr.  John  Lawrence,  Mr.  Mansel,  and  his  successor, 
Mr.  Montgomery.  ‘ I desire  on  my  own  part  to  record,  in  the  most  em- 
phatic manner,  an  acknowledgment  of  the  obligations  of  the  Government 
of  India  to  those  distinguished  officers,  and  its  admiration  of  the  ability, 
the  energy,  the  judgment,  and  indefatigable  devotion  with  which  they 
have  discharged  the  onerous  and  responsible  duties  entrusted  to  them, 
and  of  which  I have  been  for  several  years  a close  and  grateful  observer. 
1 request  them  to  receive  the  most  marked  assurances  of  the  cordial  ap- 
probation and  thanks  of  the  Governor- General  in  Council ; and  at  the 
same  time  I beg  leave  to  commend  them  to  the  favour  and  consideration 
of  the  Honourable  Court. 

(Signed)  Dalhousie. 

May  9,  1853. 

Finally,  the  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company,  whom  Sir 
John  Kaye,  their  chartered  and  chivalrous  advocate,  has  not 
unjustly  characterised  as  ‘good  masters  but  very  chary  of 
gracious  words,’  proved,  on  the  receipt  of  the  Punjab  report 
and  of  Lord  Dalhousie’s  comments  thereon,  that  they  could,  on 
occasion,  not  only  not  be  chary  of  gracious  words,  but  could  be 
aroused  into  a genuine  enthusiasm. 

We  will  not  delay  (they  say)  to  express  to  you  the  high  satisfaction 
with  which  we  have  read  this  record  of  a wise  and  eminently  successful 
administration.  In  the  short  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  Punjab 
became  a part  of  the  British  dominions,  results  have  been  achieved  such 
as  could  scarcely  have  been  hoped  for  as  the  reward  of  many  years  of 
well-directed  exertions.  The  formidable  army,  which  it  had  required  so 
many  battles  to  subdue,  has  been  quietly  disbanded,  and  the  turbulent 
soldiery  have  settled  to  industrious  pursuits.  Peace  and  security  reign 


1849-52 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  PUNJAB  BOARD. 


285 


throughout  the  country,  and  the  amount  of  crime  is  as  small  as  in  our 
best  administere(d  territories.  Justice  has  been  made  accessible,  with- 
out costly  formalities,  to  the  whole  population.  Industry  and  commerce 
have  been  set  free.  A great  mass  of  oppressive  and  burdensome  taxa- 
tion has  been  abolished.  Money  rents  have  been  substituted  for  pay- 
ment in  kind,  and  a settlement  of  the  land  revenue  has  been  completed 
in  nearly  the  whole  country,  at  a considerable  reduction  on  the  former 
amount.  In  the  settlement,  the  best  lights  of  recent  experience  have 
been  turned  to  the  utmost  account,  and  the  various  errors,  committed 
in  a more  imperfect  state  of  our  knowledge  of  India,  have  been  carefully 
avoided.  Cultivation  has  been  largely  increased.  Notwithstanding  the 
great  sacrifices  of  revenue,  there  was  a surplus,  after  defraying  the  civil 
and  military  expenses,  of  fifty-two  lacs  on  the  first,  and  sixty-four  and 
a-half  lacs  on  the  second  year  after  annexation.  . . . Results  like 

these  reflect  the  greatest  honour  on  the  administration  of  your  Lordship 
in  Council,  and  on  the  system  of  Indian  government  generally.  It  is  a 
source  of  just  pride  to  us  that  our  services,  civil  and  military,  should 
have  afforded  men  capable,  in  so  short  a time,  of  carrying  into  full  effect 
such  a series  of  enlightened  and  beneficent  measures.  The  executive 
functionaries  in  the  subordinate  ranks  have  proved  themselves  worthy  ot 
the  honourable  career  which  awaits  them.  The  members  of  the  Board 
of  Administration — Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  Mr.  John  Lawrence,  Mr.  Man- 
sel,  and  Mr.  Montgomery — have  entitled  themselves  to  be  placed  in  the 
foremost  rank  of  Indian  administrators. 

We  are,  your  affectionate  friends, 

(Signed)  R.  Ellice. 

J.  Olliphant,  &c.,  &c. 

London,  October  26,  1853. 

If  any  critic  is  disposed,  malevolently  or  otherwise,  to  remark 
here  that  the  eulogies  of  Lord  Dalhousie  were  passed  on  what 
was,  in  part  at  least,  his  own  handiwork,  and  so  reflected  credit 
on  himself,  and  that  the  Directors  based  their  judgment  on  the 
report  drawn  up  by  the  actors  themselves  rather  than  on  an  im- 
mediate knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  it  is  perhaps  enough 
to  point  to  the  Mutiny,  and  to  ask  whether  its  experiences  do 
not  more  than  justify  all  that  has  been  said  in  praise  of  the 
Punjab  administration.  Had  there  been  any  weak  point  in  the 
system  that  fiery  trial  must  have  discovered  and  probed  it  to 
the  utmost.  No  such  weak  point  was  found. 

But  it  is  not  without  special  interest,  to  me  at  least,  to  add 
that,  after  a conversation  of  many  hours  with  the  man  who, 
perhaps  of  all  others  now  living,  is  most  familiar  with  the  facts 
of  the  case,  and  was  throughout  the  best  years  of  his  life  most 
intimate  with  John  Lawrence,  I asked  him  point  blank 


286 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


whether,  looking  back  at  this  distance  of  time,  he  thought  that 
any  part  of  the  ‘ Punjab  Reports  ’ was  too  highly  coloured,  and 
whether,  if  they  had  now  to  be  rewritten,  he  would  wish  to 
modify  anything  therein.  Sir  Richard  Temple,  as  the  next 
chapter  will  show,  though  he  was  not  Secretary  to  the  Board, 
had  done  an  important  bit  of  the  Secretary’s  work,  some  time 
before  its  final  dissolution.  It  was  his  pen  which  helped  largely 
to  put  the  thoughts  of  the  Lawrences  into  words  and  to  record 
their  achievements,  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  since 
that  time  there  is  scarcely  a corner  of  India  which  he  has  not 
visited  or  which  has  not  been  under  his  personal  rule.  Like 
the  much-travelled  Ulysses  of  old,  he  has  seen  the  cities  of 
many  men  and  has  learned  their  thoughts.  He  has  out-lived 
most  of  the  Lawrence  generation,  and  has  ruled  or  served 
another  which  knows  all  too  little  of  them  and  theirs.  But  his 
answer  to  my  question  was  unhesitating  and  emphatic.  ‘ There 
is  not  a word,’  he  said,  ‘in  the  Punjab  Reports  which  I would 
wish  unwritten.  On  the  contrary,  I should  feel  justified  in  speak- 
ing now  even  more  strongly  of  the  achievements  of  the  Board 
than  I did  then.  I have  borne  since  that  time  a part  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  nearly  every  province  in  India,  and  now,  looking  back 
upon  them  all,  I declare  to  you  that  I have  seen  no  government 
to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  Lawrences  in  the  Punjab.’ 


CHAPTER  XII. 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE.  1849—1852. 

In  the  last  chapter  I have  given  as  clear  and  succinct  a view 
as  I could  of  the  government  of  the  Punjab  by  the  Board  of 
Administration,  of  what  they  aimed  at,  and  of  what  they  ac- 
complished. Biographical  the  chapter  is  not,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  for  I have  been  able  to  throw  into  it  little  that  is 
distinctive  of  John  Lawrence  apart  from  his  colleagues.  The 
joint  responsibility  of  the  three  members  of  the  Board,  the  sys- 
tem by  which  all  important  measures  were  brought  before  them 
collectively,  and  the  way  in  which,  theoretically  at  all  events, 
they  worked  together  for  a common  end,  would  have  made  it 
difficult  to  do  so.  Biographical,  therefore,  I repeat,  the  chap- 
ter is  not.  But  none  the  less  is  it  essential  to  this  biography  ; 
for,  in  the  absence  of  private  letters,  we  are  compelled  to  judge 
of  John  Lawrence  in  great  measure  by  what  he  did  ; and  it  is 
on  what  he  did  in  the  Punjab  during  these,  as  well  as  in  subse- 
quent years  when  he  stood  alone  in  responsibility  and  power, 
that,  in  my  judgment,  his  chief  title  to  fame  rests.  It  was  this 
which  enabled  him  to  ride  and  to  allay  the  storm  when  it  burst 
forth.  Not  even  his  iron  grasp  could  have  held  the  Punjab 
during  the  crisis,  had  not  that  grasp  been  riveted  before  by 
something  which  was  not  of  iron.  The  glory  of  suppressing 
the  Mutiny  is  great,  but  the  glory  of  having  made  that  sup- 
pression possible  beforehand  is  greater  still. 

In  the  present  chapter  I purpose,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  do 
so,  to  bring  out  what  is  more  personal  and  domestic  in  the  life 
of  John  Lawrence  during  the  same  period  of  the  Board  (from 
March,  1849,  to  January,  1853),  to  lay  stress  on  his  individual 
work,  and,  in  so  doing,  to  quote  freely  from  his  demi-official 
letters,  when  they  are  of  permanent  interest.  It  is,  in  one 
respect,  the  most  painful  period  of  his  life,  for  it  deals  with  the 
severance — the  inevitable  and  irrevocable  severance — of  two 


288 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


brothers,  who  were  as  able,  as  high-minded,  as  devoted  to  duty 
and  to  each  other,  as,  perhaps,  any  two  brothers  ever  were. 
But  it  is  a subject  which  I am  not  at  liberty  to  shirk.  Herman 
Merivale  has  treated  it  with  ability  and  judgment  from  his 
standpoint  as  biographer  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence.  It  remains 
for  me  to  treat  of  it,  as  best  I can,  from  my  standpoint  as  the  bio- 
grapher of  John  Lawrence.  Happily  there  is  no  temptation  to 
suppress  aught  that  is  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  either 
of  the  two  brothers.  The  characters  of  each  will  be  brought  out 
into  strong  relief.  Neither  of  them  will  be  found  to  be  free 
from  faults  ; and  what  I imagine  those  faults  to  have  been  I 
shall  endeavour  to  indicate,  as  both  brothers  would  have  wished 
their  biographers  to  do,  without  fear  and  without  favour.  But 
there  is  nothing  which  need  shrink  from  the  light  of  day,  or 
which,  however  painful,  is  discreditable  to  either.  The  great 
light  which  is  said  to  beat  upon  a throne  and  blacken  every 
blot,  will  find  nothing  to  blacken  here. 

The  last  glimpse  we  obtained  of  John  Lawrence  in  the  quiet 
of  his  own  family,  if  such  a word  as  quiet  can  ever  be  used  of 
his  toilsome  life,  was  in  March,  1848,  when,  having  rid  himself 
at  last  of  his  troublesome  ‘acting  ’’post  at  Lahore,  he  returned 
with  his  wife  and  children  to  his  own  Commissionership  of  Jul- 
lundur,  hoping,  in  the  cool  hill-station  of  Dhurmsala,  to  enjoy 
a brief  period  of  comparative  rest  and  domestic  life.  There 
was  excellent  shooting  to  be  had  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  I 
am  fortunately  able  to  relate,  nearly  in  his  own  words,  one 
striking  incident  of  the  chase. 

It  was  in  the  year  1848  that  my  brother  Richard,  my  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  myself,  went  up  into  the  hills,  to  a place  called  Dhurmsala, 
near  Kangra.  There  was  first-rate  bear-shooting  to  be  had  in  the  coun- 
try round  ; so  Richard,  George  Christian,  and  I myself,  went  off  one 
day,  accompanied  by  a suitable  number  of  attendants  who  were  to  beat 
the  bushes  and  rout  out  the  animals.  It  was  not  long  before  we  dis- 
covered an  enormous  bear  concealed  in  a cavern.  Many  were  our  ef- 
forts to  dislodge  him,  but  all  in  vain,  until  one  of  the  natives  managed, 
by  some  means,  to  thrust  a spear  into  him  from  behind.  At  first  this 
seemed  hardly  to  disturb  him,  but  as  the  man  grew  more  persistent  in 
his  endeavours,  Bruin,  goaded  into  fury,  rushed  out  to  attack  his  ene- 
mies. I fired  the  moment  I got  sight  of  him,  but  only  succeeded  in 
wounding  him.  This  made  him  more  desperate.  He  rushed  at  me, 
and  as  I leaped  back,  my  foot  caught,  and  I rolled  down  the  steep  side 
of  the  hill  amongst  the  thorns.  In  a moment  he  was  upon  me,  1 felt  his 
hot  breath  upon  my  face,  and  thought  it  was  all  up  with  me.  But  my 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


289 


companions  rushed  to  the  rescue,  and  Bruin  turned  round,  uncertain 
whom  to  attack.  But  before  Richard  could  fire,  he  had  singled  out  a 
tall  handsome  Sepoy,  had  sprung  upon  him,  and  had  torn  his  nose  clean 
off  his  face.  At  this  moment  my  brother  fired,  and  again  the  bear  was 
only  wounded.  Fortunately  I had  reloaded,  and  soon  put  an  end  to  his 
existence  by  lodging  a ball  in  his  brain.  I at  once  sent  off  a messenger 
to  our  house,  carefully  instructing  him  to  tell  my  wife  to  prepare  ban- 
dages and  everything  necessary,  but  to  be  sure  to  say  that  it  was  not  I 
who  was  hurt.  The  moment  he  was  off,  I had  the  poor  fellow  put  on  a 
stretcher,  and  we  all  started  for  home.  The  unfortunate  man  was  in 
dreadful  pain,  and  his  face  was  terribly  lacerated;  but  the  only  thing 
that  seemed  to  affect  him  was  the  fact  that  he  was  to  have  been  married 
very  shortly,  and  he  was  now  afraid  that  his  young  woman  would  not 
have  him  without  a nose  to  his  face.  I tried  to  console  him,  but  it  was 
of  no  avail. 

Meanwhile,  the  messenger  had  reached  my  house  and,  after  giving 
my  wife  the  message,  had  told  her  that  I was  hurt.  What  the  rascal 
meant  I do  not  know,  but  he  succeeded  in  thoroughly  alarming  her,  and 
she  instantly  came  out  to  meet  the  cavalcade,  bringing  out  two  little 
daughters,  Kate  and  Emmie,  with  her.  When  she  first  saw  the  men 
carrying  the  stretcher  in  the  distance,  she  thought  I must  be  dead.  But 
she  was  soon  able  to  recognise  me  among  the  bearers,  and  could  hardly 
believe  her  ears  when  I told  her  that  I was  safe  and  sound.  We  had  the 
Sepoy  carried  into  his  tent,  and  our  own  doctor  at  once  looked  to  his 
hurts,  but  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  he  was  disfigured  for  life.  Now  it 
occurred  to  me  that  I had  heard  of  a native  doctor  who  was  celebrated 
in  those  parts  for  being  able  to  make  noses.  I had  never  paid  much  at- 
tention to  this  report  before,  but  I now  thought  that  the  least  I could  do 
was  to  summon  the  nose-maker,  and  let  him  try  his  skill  on  the  Sepoy 
who  had  lost  his  nose  in  my  service.  So  I sent  for  the  man,  and  took 
him  in  to  see  the  invalid.  He  declared  he  would  make  him  a new 
nose  which  would  be  as  good  as  the  one  he  had  lost.  I bid  him  set  to 
work,  and  he  at  once  proceeded  to  cut  a triangular  piece  of  skin  out  of 
the  Sepoy’s  forehead  ; he  put  this  over  the  place  where  the  nose  ought  to 
be,  and  then  pulled  his  face  this  way  and  that  until  at  last  he  had  quite 
a little  lump  resembling  a nose  on  the  man’s  face.  He  repeated  the 
pulling  process  every  day  for  a week,  and  finally  produced  a nose  which, 
if  not  quite  as  good  as  the  former  one,  was  fairly  presentable.  The  Se- 
poy’s delight  knew  no  bounds,  especially  as  his  young  woman  liked  the 
new  nose  quite  as  much  as  the  old  one  ; indeed,  I believe  she  looked 
on  him  as  quite  a hero. 

John  Lawrence’s  own  escape  had  been  a sufficiently  narrow 
one.  ‘ When  I saw  the  bear  and  you  rolling  over  one  another,’ 
said  George  Christian,  who  had  been  one  of  the  party,  ‘I  felt 
that  my  promotion  was  trembling  in  the  balance.’  ‘ You  little 
Vol.  I. — 19 


290 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


villain  ! ’ exclaimed  his  chief  ; and  when  telling  his  story  be  used 
to  say  that  when  he  picked  himself  up  from  his  roll  amidst  the 
thorns,  he  was  like  a porcupine  or  a pincushion,  ‘stuck  ’ all  over 
with  them.  ‘ It  took  my  wife,’  he  said,  ‘a  week  or  more  to  pull 
them  out  of  my  head.’ 

The  news  of  the  murder  of  Agnew  and  Anderson  at  Mooltan, 
and  the  dull  rumbling  of  the  impending  storm  in  the  Punjab, 
soon  called  John  Lawrence  away  from  the  pleasures  of  bear- 
hunting to  even  more  stirring  scenes.  He  left  his  wife  and 
family  behind  him,  warning  them  to  be  ready,  on  the  receipt  of 
a message  from  him,  to  come  down  with  all  speed  to  a place  of 
safety  in  the  plains.  It  was  a pleasant  spot,  this  Dhurmsala  ; 
and  the  hill  people  around  it,  the  Gudis,  were  simple  and  lov- 
able, as  a trilling  but  touching  incident  of  one  of  the  earlier 
visits  of  the  Lawrences  to  the  place  will  show.  John  Lawrence 
had  been  called  off  to  Lahore,  to  help  his  brother,  and  as  his 
wife  was  the  only  European  left  in  the  small  hill-station,  he  had 
spoken  before  his  departure  to  the  headman  of  a neighbouring 
village,  begging  him  to  look  after  her,  and  see  that  the  family 
had  no  difficulty  in  getting  what  they  required.  The  old  man 
came  very  often  to  see  her,  dressed  in  the  peculiar  costume  of 
the  hill  people,  a large  loose  coat  fastened  by  a belt  round  the 
waist,  and  out  of  the  capacious  hollow  of  this  coat  he  used  to 
produce  various  offerings  in  the  shape  of  cucumbers  or  Indian 
corn,  and,  now  and  then,  a live  fowl  or  lamb.  He  took  great 
interest  in  her  welfare  and  was  always  most  kind  and  courteous. 
Thinking  that  she  was  unhappy  in  her  quiet  life,  he  wrote  pri- 
vately to  her  husband  at  Lahore  to  say  that  she  looked  so  mel- 
ancholy, always  walking  about  with  her  head  down,  that  he  ad- 
vised him  to  return  to  her  as  soon  as  possible.  Otherwise  she 
might  be  turned  into  a pheasant  and  be  seen  no  more  ! Such  was 
the  odd  superstition  of  this  simple  and  kindly  people. 

But  even  the  attentions  of  the  trusty  Gudi  could  hardly  have 
made  Dhurmsala  a safe  place  of  residence  for  Mrs.  John  Law- 
rence during  the  summer  of  1848.  For  many  of  the  hill  chief- 
tains around  were  preparing  to  rise,  and  a hasty  message  from 
her  husband  warned  her  to  make  the  best  of  her  way  to  the  hill 
fort  of  Kangra,  where  his  brother  Richard  would  help  her. 
With  her  four  young  children  and  her  English  maid  she  left  the 
little  village.  Kangra  was  only  twelve  miles  distant,  but  the 
journey  was  not  an  easy  one  and  took  many  a long  hour  to  ac- 
complish. They  were  obliged  to  travel  in  what  are  now  well 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


291 


known  as  jampans,  a sort  of  a chair  carried  by  bearers.  There 
were  several  heavily  swollen  streams  to  be  crossed,  and  here  the 
jampans  were  carried  on  the  heads  of  the  bearers  instead  of  on 
their  shoulders,  while  a second  set  of  men  walked  alongside, 
helping  them  to  hold  their  loads  aloft.  Before  evening  the 
travellers  arrived  safely  within  the  walls  of  the  Kangra  fort,  and 
were  soon  afterwards  summoned  by  other  messages  from  John 
Lawrence  to  Hoshiarpore  and  Jullundur.  Here  he  had  taken  a 
house  for  her,  and  here  she  passed  the  winter  in  the  company  of 
her  sister  in-law,  Mrs.  Barton,  whose  husband  was  with  his  regi- 
ment throughout  the  Chillianwallah  campaign.  During  the 
winter  John  Lawrence,  who  was  also  with  the  troops  in  the 
numerous  small  expeditions  which  I have  described,  managed 
occasionally  to  visit  her.  But  early  in  the  spring  he  was  sum- 
moned to  Lahore  to  meet  his  brother  Henry,  who  had  just  ar- 
rived from  England. 

At  the  end  of  March  the  formal  annexation  of  the  Punjab 
took  place,  and  John  found  himself,  not  altogether  to  his  satis- 
faction, as  his  letters  show,  installed  a member  of  the  new  gov- 
erning Board.  The  hot  weather  was  rapidly  coming  on  and  the 
Residency,  as  it  has  been  described  to  me  by  those  who  have  a 
good  right  to  speak,  was  the  busiest  of  all  busy  scenes.  Some 
fifty  officers  and  their  families,  arriving  from  various  parts  of 
India,  and  despatched  with  all  haste  through  the  roadless  and 
still  disturbed  country  to  their  various  destinations  ; the  Law- 
rences and  their  secretaries  working,  as  we  may  well  believe, 
full  sixty  minutes  to  every  hour  ; every  room  and  every  bed  in 
the  Residency  and  the  adjoining  houses  filled  or  over-filled,  and 
crowds  everywhere  ! 

But  (says  Lady  Lawrence),  in  spite  of  the  overwhelming  heat  and  tur- 
moil, we  were  all  too  busy,  I believe,  to  be  ill.  A wonderful  work  was 
accomplished  during  those  days,  and  happy  memories,  indeed,  have  I 
of  them.  How  I prized  my  evening  drive  with  my  husband  ; and  how 
vigourous  and  strong  he  was  ! He  was  never  too  busy  to  attend  to  my 
wants,  and  help  me  in  any  troublesome  matter ; and,  in  addition  to  his 
own  hard  work,  he  always  made  time  to  look  after  his  brother’s  private 
affairs.  Indeed,  as  that  brother  remarked,  he  would  have  saved  little 
for  his  children  but  for  John’s  wonderful  aid.  Always  liberal  with  his 
private  funds,  and  ready  to  help  others,  my  husband  spent  as  little  as 
possible  on  himself,  and  was  ever  sparing  of  the  public  money,  anxiously 
impressing  on  everyone  the  necessity  of  strict  economy  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  new  province.  But  this  is  so  well  known  that  it  needs  no 


292 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


words  of  mine  ; only  I like  to  show  that,  while  he  was  careful  for  others, 
he  never  spared  his  own  purse,  or  time,  or  trouble,  when  he  could  be 
helpful. 

The  Board  met,  and  infinite  were  the  number  and  variety  of 
the  subjects  calling  for  immediate  attention.  On  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence,  as  the  President,  naturally  devolved  what  is  called 
in  India  the  political,  as  distinguished  from  the  civil,  work  of 
the  annexed  province.  He  was  the  recognised  medium  of 
communication  with  the  Supreme  Government,  and  the  racy 
and  incisive  letters  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  now  before  me,  written 
to  him  day  by  day,  and  sometimes  two  or  three  on  the  same 
day,  during  the  months  which  preceded  and  followed  the  an- 
nexation, give  a pretty  clear  idea,  in  the  absence  of  other 
documents,  of  the  multifarious  duties  which  fell,  in  the  first 
instance,  on  him  as  President,  and  afterwards  on  the  other 
members  of  the  Board.  The  disbanding  and  then  the  partial 
re-enrolment  of  the  Sikh  army  ; the  disarmament  of  the  people; 
the  treatment  of  the  fallen  Sirdars  ; the  raising  of  Irregulars  ; 
the  selection  of  military  stations  with  gardens  for  the  troops  ; 
the  arrangements  for  the  Guides  and  Engineers  ; the  dismissal 
of  Captain  Cunningham  by  the  Directors  for  the  publication 
of  his  able  and  honest — too  honest — history  of  the  Sikhs  ; the 
trial  of  Moolraj  ; the  care  of  the  young  Maharaja ; the  escape 
of  the  Maharani  ; the  safe  custody  of  the  crown  jewels  (of  which 
more  anon)  ; the  Afridi  troubles,  ‘ a plaguy  set,’ as  Lord  Dal- 
housie calls  them  ; the  preparation  to  receive  the  onslaught  of 
Sir  Charles  Napier  on  the  whole  system  of  the  administration 
of  the  Punjab, — these  are  but  a fraction  of  the  subjects  with 
which  Lord  Dalhousie’s  letters  deal,  and  which  would  come  be- 
fore John  Lawrence  as  a member  of  the  Board,  though  the  in- 
itiative would  not  rest  with  him,  but  with  his  brother. 

John  Lawrence’s  own  immediate  duties  were  connected  with 
the  civil  administration,  and  especially  with  the  settlement  of 
the  land  revenue.  This  was  the  work  for  which  his  admirable 
civil  training  had  especially  fitted  him.  He  was  now  to  reap 
the  appropriate  reward — a reward  not  of  repose,  but  of  re- 
doubled work  and  responsibility — for  those  long  years  which 
he  had  spent  almost  alone  among  the  dusky  myriads  of  Pani- 
put  and  Gorgaon,  Etawa  and  Delhi.  It  was  now  that  his 
knowledge  of  all  classes  of  the  natives,  acquired,  as  it  only 
could  be  acquired,  by  the  closest  intimacy  with  them,  stored 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


293 


up  in  the  most  retentive  of  memories,  and  never  allowed  to 
rust  for  want  of  use — was  to  be  called  into  abundant  requisi- 
tion. The  ‘ mysteries  ’ of  the  revenue  survey  and  of  the  revi- 
sion of  the  settlement  were  no  mysteries  to  him,  for  he  had  long 
since  been  brought  face  to  face  with  all  the  difficulties  which 
they  suggested,  and  had  been  able  to  overcome  them. 

He  k*iew  (says  Sir  John  Kaye,  the  friend  of  both  brothers  alike)  how 
the  boundaries  of  estates  were  determined,  how  their  productiveness 
was  to  be  increased,  how  revenue  was  to  be  raised  in  a manner  most 
advantageous  to  the  State  and  least  injurious  to  the  people.  And  with 
all  this  extensive  knowledge  were  united  energy  and  activity  of  the  high- 
est order.  He  had  the  enthusiasm  of  youth  with  the  experience  of  age, 
and  envy  and  detraction  could  say  nothing  worse  of  him  than  that  he 
was  the  brother  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 

And  indeed  there  was  enough  to  be  done  in  the  Punjab  to 
tax  all  this  experience,  all  this  energy,  and  all  this  enthusiasm 
to  the  utmost.  Differences  of  opinion  between  the  brothers  on 
matters  of  policy  soon  began  to  reveal  themselves,  or  rather 
were  brought  into  greater  prominence  by  the  fact  that  they 
were  now  for  the  first  time  sitting  on  equal  terms  at  the  same 
table.  These  differences  had  never  been  disguised.  On  the 
contrary,  they  had  been  fully  recognised  by  each,  as  the  letters 
of  John  Lawrence  to  his  brother,  which  I have  already  quoted, 
show.  But  while  John  had  been  merely  4 acting  ’ for  JJenry  at 
Lahore,  he  had,  of  course,  set  himself  loyally  to  carry  out  his 
views,  especially  where  they  most  differed  from  his  own.  More- 
over, the  questions  between  them  respecting  jagheers,  the  priv- 
ileges and  position  of  the  native  aristocracy,  and  the  like,  had 
been  theoretical  rather  than  practical,  so  long  as  the  annexation 
of  the  Punjab  was  only  looming  in  the  distance  and  had  not 
become  a thing  of  the  past.  But  now  the  decree  had  gone 
forth  ; the  question  referred  to  had  come  within  the  range  of 
practical  politics  ; and  the  differences  began  to  be  more  vital. 
Each  brother  had  a quick  temper,  though  Henry’s  was  the  least 
under  control  of  the  two  ; each  had  a clear  head  and  a firm 
will  ; each  had  an  equal  voice  at  the  Board  ; and  each  was 
fully  convinced  of  the  expediency  and  justice  of  the  view  which 
he  himself  held.  But  these  were  only  the  first  mutterings  of  an 
explosion  which  might  be  postponed  for  many  a month  or 
year — possibly  might  never  break  forth  at  all — and  some  of 
the  earlier  meetings  of  the  volcanic  Board  seem  to  have  been 
amusing  enough. 


294 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


Here  is  a sample.  Shortly  before  the  decree  of  annexation 
went  forth,  Lord  Dalhousie  had  written  to  Henry  Lawrence  to 
make  every  disposition  for  the  safe  custody  of  the  State  jewels 
which  were  about  to  fall  into  the  lap  of  the  English.  And 
writing  to  him  again  on  April  27,  on  the  subject  of  the  Maha- 
rani,  who  had  just  escaped  from  our  hands,  he  remarks : 
* This  incident,  three  months  ago,  would  have  been  inconve- 
nient. Now,  it  does  not  so  much  signify.  At  the  same  time  it 
is  discreditable,  and  I have  been  annoyed  by  the  occurrence. 
As  guardians  seem  so  little  to  be  trusted,  I hope  you  have 
taken  proper  precautions  in  providing  full  security  for  the 
jewels  and  Crown  property  at  Lahore,  whose  removal  would 
be  a more  serious  affair  than  that  of  the  Maharani.’  It  had,  in 
fact,  been  found  more  than  once,  on  the  enrolment  of  some 
new  province  in  our  Empire,  which,  whether  by  cession,  by 
lapse  or  by  forcible  annexation,  was  growing,  or  about  to  grow, 
so  rapidly,  that  the  State  jewels  or  money  had  had  a knack  of 
disappearing.  It  is  amusing,  in  the  correspondence  before  me, 
to  read  the  expressions  of  virtuous  indignation  which  bubble 
over  from  our  officers  at  the  extravagance,  or  rapacity,  or  care- 
lessness of  the  former  owners,  when  on  entering  a palace, 
which  they  deemed  would  be  stocked  with  jewels  ready  for 
English  use,  they  found  that  the  treasury  was  empty  and  the 
jewels  were  gone.  Great  care  was,  therefore,  needful,  es- 
pecially as  among  the  Punjab  jewels  was  the  matchless  Koh-i- 
noor,  the  ‘ mountain  of  light,’  which  it  was  intended  should  be 
expressly  surrendered  by  the  young  Maharaja  to  the  English 
Queen. 

The  origin  of  this  peerless  jewel  is  lost  in  the  mists  of  le- 
gendary antiquity.  It  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  early 
Turkish  invaders  of  India,  and  from  them  it  had  passed  to  the 
Moguls.  ‘My  son  Humayoun,’  says  the  illustrious  Baber,  one 
of  the  most  lovable  of  all  Eastern  Monarchs,  ‘ has  won  a jewel 
from  the  Raja  which  is  valued  at  half  the  daily  expenses  of  the 
whole  world  ! ’ 1 A century  or  two  later  the  Persian  conqueror, 
Nadir  Shah,  seeing  it  glitter  in  the  turban  of  Baber’s  conquered 
descendant,  exclaimed  with  rough  and  somewhat  costly  humour, 
‘ We  will  be  friends  ; let  11s  change  our  turbans  in  pledge  of 
friendship.’  And  the  exchange  of  course  took  place. 

Xpvcr (a  x«(\k€ iW,  €Karo/j./3oi  ivveafioitov. 


1 Quoted  by  Edwin  Arnold,  Dalhousie  s Administration , vol.  i. , p.  191. 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


295 


The  Afghan  conqueror,  Ahmed  Shah,  wrested  it,  in  his  turn, 
from  the  feeble  hand  of  Nadir  Shah’s  successors,  and  so  it  came 
into  the  possession  of  Shah  Sooja,  who  was,  by  turns,  the  pen- 
sioner and  the  puppet  of  the  English,  and  the  miserable  pretext 
of  the  first  disastrous  Afghan  war.  Half-prisoner  and  half-guest 
of  Runjeet  Sing,  he  had,  of  course,  been  relieved  by  the  one- 
eyed,  money-loving  Sikh  of  the  responsibility  of  keeping  so 
valuable  a treasure.  Runjeet,  listening,  on  his  death-bed,  to 
the  suggestions  of  a wily  Brahmin,  had  been  half-disposed,  like 
other  death-bed  penitents,  to  make  his  peace  with  the  other 
world  by  sending  the  beautiful  jewel  to  adorn  the  idol  of  Jug- 
gernaut. But  fate  reserved  it  for  the  custody  of  the  Punjab 
Board,  and  for  the  ultimate  possession  of  the  English  Crown. 
One  incident  of  its  transfer  not  generally  known,  I am  able  to 
relate  on  the  best  authority. 

At  one  of  the  early  meetings  of  the  Board  the  jewel  was 
formally  made  over  to  the  Punjab  Government,  and  by  it  com- 
mitted to  the  care  of  John  Lawrence.  Perhaps  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Board  thought  him  the  most  practical  and  busi- 
ness-like— as  no  doubt  in  most  matters  he  was — of  the  three  ; 
or  they  deemed  that  his  splendid  physique , and  the  gnarled 
and  knotted  stick  which,  fit  emblem  of  himself,  he  always 
carried  with  him — and  which  the  Sikhs,  thinking  it  to  be  a 
kind  of  divining-rod  or  familiar  spirit,  christened  by  its  own- 
er’s name,  ‘Jans  Larens  ’ — would  be  the  best  practical  security 
for  its  safe  keeping.  But  in  this  instance  they  misjudged  their 
man.  How  could  a man  so  careless  of  the  conventionalities  of 
life,  a man  who  never  wore  a jewel  on  his  person,  till  the  orders 
and  clasps  which  he  won  compelled  him  to  do  so,  and  even  then 
used  to  put  them  so  remorselessly  in  the  wrong  place  that  the 
court  costumier  exclaimed  in  despair,  that  he  would  lose  reputa- 
tion by  him  in  spite  of  all  his  pains, — how,  I ask,  was  it  likely 
that  such  a man  would  realise  the  inestimable  value  of  the  jewel 
entrusted  to  him  ? And,  again,  what  was  the  custody  of  a court 
jewel  compared  with  that  of  the  happiness  of  the  millions  for 
which  he  was  also  responsible  ? Anyhow,  half-unconsciously 
he  thrust  it,  wrapped  up  in  numerous  folds  of  cloth,  into  his 
waistcoat  pocket,  the  whole  being  contained  in  an  insignificant 
little  box,  which  could  be  thus  easily  put  away.  He  went  on 
working  as  hard  as  usual,  and  thought  no  more  of  his  precious 
treasure.  He  changed  his  clothes  for  dinner,  and  threw  his 
waistcoat  aside,  still  forgetting  all  about  the  box  contained  in  it ! 


296 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


About  six  weeks  afterwards  a message  came  from  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  saying  that  the  Queen  had  ordered  the  jewel  to  be  at 
once  transmitted  to  her.  The  subject  was  mentioned  by  Sir 
Henry  at  the  Board,  when  John  said  quietly,  ‘ Send  for  it  at 
once.’  ‘ Why,  you've  got  it  ! ’ said  Sir  Henry.  In  a moment  the 
fact  of  his  carelessness  flashed  across  him.  He  was  horror- 
stricken,  and,  as  he  used  to  describe  his  feelings  afterwards, 
when  telling  the  story,  he  said  to  himself,  ‘ Well,  this  is  the 
worst  trouble  I have  ever  yet  got  into  ! ’ But  such  was  his  com- 
mand over  his  countenance  that  he  gave  no  external  sign  of 
trepidation  : ‘ Oh,  yes,  of  course  ; I forgot  about  it,’  he  said, 
and  went  on  with  the  business  of  the  meeting  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  He  soon,  however,  found  an  opportunity  of  slipping 
away  to  his  private  room,  and,  with  his  heart  in  his  mouth,  sent 
for  his  old  bearer  and  said  to  him,  ‘ Have  you  got  a small  box 
which  was  in  my  waistcoat  pocket  some  time  ago?’  ‘Yes, 
Sahib,’  the  man  replied,  ‘ Dibbia  (the  native  word  for  it),  I found 
it  and  put  it  in  one  of  your  boxes.’  ‘Bring  it  here,’  said  the 
Sahib.  Upon  this  the  old  native  went  to  a broken-down  tin 
box,  and  produced  the  little  one  from  it.  ‘ Open  it,’  said  John 
Lawrence,  ‘ and  see  what  is  inside.’  He  watched  the  man  anx- 
iously enough  as  fold  after  fold  of  the  small  rags  was  taken  off, 
and  great  was  his  relief  when  the  precious  gem  appeared.  The 
bearer  seemed  perfectly  unconscious  of  the  treasure  which  he 
had  had  in  his  keeping.  ‘ There  is  nothing  here,  Sahib,’  he 
said,  ‘but  a bit  of  glass  ! ’ 

The  Koh-i-noor  was  then  quickly  presented  to  the  Board  that 
it  might  be  forwarded  to  the  Queen  ; and  when  John  Lawrence 
told  them  his  story,  great  was  the  amusement  it  caused.  The 
jewel  passed,  I am  told  on  good  authority,  through  one  or  two 
other  striking  vicissitudes  before  it  was  safely  lodged  in  the 
English  crown.  But  never,  I feel  sure,  whether  flashing  in  the 
diadem  of  Turk  or  Mogul,  or  in  the  uplifted  sword  of  Persian,  or 
Afghan,  or  Sikh  conqueror,  did  it  pass  through  so  strange  a 
crisis,  or  run  a greater  risk  of  being  lost  for  ever,  than  when  it 
lay  forgotten  in  the  waistcoat  pocket  of  John  Lawrence,  or  in 
the  broken-down  tin  box  of  his  aged  bearer. 

I have  spoken  of  the  number  and  perplexity  of  the  subjects 
which  came  before  the  Board  for  consideration  in  its  early  days. 
Henry  Lawrence  was  not  well  at  the  time  of  annexation.  He 
had  returned  hastily  from  England  without  taking  the  rest 
which  had  been  prescribed  as  essential  for  him,  and  in  sore  dis- 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


297 


tress  of  mind  at  the  mismanagement  which,  as  he  conceived, 
had  led  to  the  second  Sikh  war.  The  annexation  of  the  Pun- 
jab overthrew  the  dream  of  a lifetime — the  establishment  of  a 
strong,  friendly,  independent  native  power  between  ourselves 
and  the  wild  Afghan  tribes.  He  had  struggled  against  the  idea 
of  annexation  while  it  was  yet  in  the  future  with  all  the  chiv- 
alry and  generosity  of  his  nature  ; and  now  that  it  was  an  ac- 
complished fact,  he  accepted  it  as  such,  set  himself  to  make  the 
best  of  it,  and  struggled,  with  the  same  chivalry  and  generosity, 
to  ease  the  fall  of  the  privileged  classes.  lie  contested  every 
inch  of  ground  with  Lord  Dalhousie  and  with  his  brother  John, 
who  saw,  more  clearly  than  he  did,  how  impossible  it  was,  in 
view  of  the  poverty  of  the  masses,  for  the  two  systems  of  gov- 
ernment— the  native  feudal  system,  based  on  huge  grants  of 
land,  on  immunities  from  taxation,  and  on  military  service  ; 
and  our  own,  based  on  equality  before  the  law,  on  equal  and 
light  assessments,  and  on  reforms  and  improvements  of  every 
kind — to  exist  side  by  side.  The  more  that  could  be  left  to  the 
Sirdars  of  their  dignity,  their  power,  their  property,  their  im- 
munities, the  better,  in  Henry  Lawrence’s  judgment  ; the  worse 
in  John’s  and  in  Lord  Dalhousie’s.  In  the  one  case  the  few 
would  gain,  in  the  other  the  many.  It  was  one  of  those  ques- 
tions on  which  honest  and  honourable  and  far-seeing  men 
might  well  differ. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  said  that  it  is  as  difficult  not  to  feel  with 
Henry  Lawrence  as  not  to  think  with  John.  In  the  one  brother 
the  emotional  part  of  our  nature  tended  to  predominate,  in  the 
other  the  intellectual  and  the  practical.  Each  had  a warm  heart 
and  a clear  head,  and  each,  beyond  question,  had  a conscience 
whose  dictates  were  law.  But  the  strong  sympathies  of  Henry 
tended,  at  times,  to  overbalance  his  judgment  ; and  the  clear- 
ness of  John’s  judgment  tended  to  repress,  or  at  least  to  keep 
under  a too  stern  control,  the  feelings  of  his  heart.  The  parti- 
sans of  the  one  brother  might  be  excused  if  they  call  the  other 
flighty  and  unpractical  ; the  partisans  of  that  other  if  they 
deemed  the  first  rigorous  and  hard.  But  it  would  have  been  as 
impossible  for  the  partisans  of  John  not  to  love  Henry,  as  for 
the  partisans  of  Henry  not  to  trust  John. 

Each  brother,  fully  conscious  that  the  other  would,  as  far  as 
possible,  oppose  and  thwart  his  views  on  this  and  cognate  ques- 
tions, pressed  them,  probably,  to  a greater  extent  than  he  would 
otherwise  have  done.  It  was  human  nature  that  it  should  be 


298 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


so.  The  friction,  the  tension,  the  heartburning,  were  intense, 
for  this  question  of  the  treatment  of  the  Sirdars  underlay  and 
tended  to  colour  and  to  become  intermixed  with  all  the  others. 
But  the  result,  as  I have  already  said,  was,  beyond  doubt,  ad- 
vantageous to  the  State.  The  privileged  classes  fell,  as  they 
needs  must ; but  it  was,  to  a certain  extent,  by  a gradual  and 
mitigated  fall,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  uphill  battle  fought  by 
Henry  Lawrence.  The  masses  received  an  equivalent  for  the 
loss  of  their  national  life  in  the  freedom  from  oppression,  in  the 
security  of  life  and  property,  in  costly  improvements  and  yet  in 
lightened  assessments,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  statesmanlike  views 
and  the  untiring  assiduity  of  John  Lawrence. 

Certainly  it  would  have  fared  ill  with  the  great  Sirdars  who 
had  favoured  the  rebellion  had  they  been  left  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  Lord  Dalhousie.  That  they  had  anything  left  to 
them  beyond  ‘ their  Lives  and  the  barest  maintenance  ’ was  due 
to  Henry  Lawrence’s  earnest  and  importunate  entreaties. 
‘ Stripped  of  all  rank,  deprived  of  all  property,  reduced,  each 
of  them,  to  a monthly  pittance  of  two  hundred  rupees,  con- 
fined within  very  narrow  limits,  and  then  watched,  well  know- 
ing that  an  attempt  at  flight  would  be  made  at  the  risk  of  their 
lives  ; ’ — such  is  the  description  of  the  Sirdars  given  on  August 
25,  not  by  the  highly  coloured  imagination  of  Henry  Lawrence, 
but  by  Lord  Dalhousie  himself,  in  view  of  the  misgiving  of  the 
Directors  at  home,  who  feared  that  they  might  still  be  the  cause 
of  another  Punjab  war. 

The  work  and  the  worry  entailed  by  the  annexation  had  al- 
ready begun  to  tell  on  Henry  Lawrence’s  enfeebled  health.  The 
heat  of  the  season  was  more  than  usually  intense.  It  was,  as 
Lord  Dalhousie  called  it,  ‘a  killing  summer’  for  those  who  had 
to  work  through  it.  Everybody  at  Lahore  suffered,  Henry 
Lawrence  most  of  all  ; and  he  was  driven,  much  against  his 
will,  to  apply  for  a month’s  leave  of  absence  at  Kussowlie. 
John  Lawrence  thus  found  himself  for  the  first  time,  on  May 
21,  in  the  doubly  delicate  and  difficult  position  which  it  was  to 
be  his  to  fill  so  often  during  his  brother’s  Presidency  of  the 
Board.  Left  at  Lahore,  with  one  colleague  only,  who,  with  all 
his  unquestioned  ability,  was  disposed  rather  to  criticise  than 
to  originate,  to  point  out  difficulties  rather  than  to  drive  through 
them,  he  found  that  nearly  the  whole  weight  of  the  current 
business  of  the  country  was  put  upon  his  shoulders. 

Henry  Lawrence  was,  by  nature,  locomotive.  Office  work 


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HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


299 


was  distasteful  to  him.  He  had  not  passed  through  the  long 
years  of  civil  training  which  would  have  fitted  him  for  it ; and 
his  natural  disposition,  his  enfeebled  health,  the  friction  at  the 
Board,  already  painfully  felt,  and  the  craving  for  that  kind  of 
life  and  work  in  which  he  was  conscious  that  he  could  do  most 
good,  all  combined  to  make  it  likely  that,  when  it  could  legiti- 
mately be  so,  he  would  be  found  working  elsewhere  than  at 
Lahore.  A young  civilian  who  had  done  good  work  in  the 
Jullundur  district,  and  who  had  a turn  for  epigram,  remarked, 
during  a visit  to  Lahore,  with  as  much,  perhaps,  of  truth  and 
cleverness  as  an  epigram  usually  contains,  that  the  Punjab  was 
governed  by  a firm  of  three  partners,  who  might  be  character- 
ised as  the  ‘ travelling,’ the  ‘working,’  and  ,the  ‘sleeping’  part- 
ner respectively.  To  spend  four  or  five  months  in  each  year 
under  canvas,  riding  some  thirty  or  forty  miles  a day  ; to  in- 
spect a salt-mine,  a fort,  a gaol,  an  asylum,  or  a bazaar  ; to  dash 
off  a review  article  in  rough  outline,  leaving  his  ever-ready  wife 
to  fill  up  the  hiatuses  of  grammar  or  of  sense  ; to  see  with  his 
own  eyes  every  portion  of  his  province,  and  to  visit  and  converse 
freely  with  every  class  among  his  subjects,  and  with  each  and  all 
of  his  subordinates,  as  far  as  possible,  in  their  own  homes,  breath- 
ing into  them  all  something  of  his  own  noble  spirit, — this  was 
exactly  the  life,  with  its  variety,  its  freshness,  its  intensity,  its  hu- 
man interest,  which  suited  Henry  Lawrence,  and  brought  out  the 
power  in  which,  by  all  accounts,  he  seems  to  have  been  unique 
among  his  contemporaries,  that  of  influencing  men  through 
their  affections  and  their  hearts.  He  was  a man  for  whom,  as 
I have  been  told  repeatedly  by  those  who  had  the  best  oppor- 
tunity of  knowing,  and  who  are  not  given  to  exaggerate,  per- 
adventure,  not  one  only,  but  a dozen,  men  in  the  Punjab  would 
have  even  been  prepared  to  die. 

But  though  the  peregrinations  of  Henry  Lawrence  were  often 
necessary,  and  were  always  productive  of  benefit  to  that  portion 
of  his  province  which  he  visited,  there  were  drawbacks  attend- 
ing them  which  could  not  but  be  felt,  immediately  by  his  col- 
leagues and  ultimately,  also,  by  himself.  It  was  not  merely  that 
the  amount  of  work  which  was  thrown  upon  those  who  were 
left  behind  was  greater,  but  that  there  was  an  element  of  uncer- 
tainty in  all  that  they  did.  Even  if  they  knew  their  own  minds 
fully  they  could  not  be  sure  that  they  knew  that  of  the  Presi- 
dent. Henry  Lawrence  often  did  not  know  his  own  mind.  He 
was  touchy  and  fitful : a disturbing  element,  therefore,  on  whose 


300 


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erratic  movements  it  was  impossible  to  count  beforehand,  and 
whose  reappearance  at  a critical  moment  might,  like  that  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  place  in  Parliament  during  his  tempor- 
ary retirement  from  public  life,  undo  a great  deal  that  had  been 
done,  or  half-done,  without  him.  Achilles  absent  was  Achilles 
still.  His  frequent  absences  from  Lahore  tended,  moreover, 
to  bring  his  brother  John  into  a prominence  which  he  would 
never  have  sought  for  himself,  and  which,  as  far  as  possible,  he 
shunned.  It  forced  him  to  be,  in  many  important  matters,  the 
medium  of  communication  between  the  Board  and  Lord  Dalhou- 
sie,  and  gave  that  clear-sighted  Governor-General  opportunities, 
which  he  might  not  otherwise  have  had,  of  comparing  the  apti- 
tudes and  capabilities  of  the  two  brothers,  and  of  making  up 
his  mind,  if  circumstances  should  ever  compel  him  to  choose 
between  them,  as  to  the  one  on  whom  his  choice  should  fall. 

In  September  Henry  Lawrence  set  out  on  a prolonged  tour 
through  Huzara  and  Kashmere.  Lord  Dalhousie  had  not  been 
unwilling  that  the  President  of  the  Board  should  see  with  his 
own  eyes  what  was  going  on  in  Huzara,  the  domain  of  James 
Abbott,  whose  fatherly  rule  there — the  rule,  as  he  somewhat 
bitterly  calls  it,  ‘of  prophet,  priest,  and  king’ — he  seems  to 
have  regarded  with  suspicion  and  mislike.  But  he  had  ex- 
pressed a doubt  whether  the  remaining  members  would  be  able 
to  carry  on  the  work  without  him.  The  ‘ killing  summer  ’ had 
pretty  well  done  its  work.  Ten  men  of  the  young  Punjab 
establishment  were  already  hors  de  combat.  Mansel,  the  third 
member  of  the  Board,  and  Christian,  its  Secretary,  were  ill, 
whilst  Edwardes  and  Nicholson,  who  were  each  in  themselves 
a tower  of  strength,  were  shortly  going  home  on  leave.  But 
John  Lawrence  stepped  into  the  gap  and  filled  it  as  few  others 
could  have  done,  and  from  this  time  forward  I find  that  he  is  in 
regular  communication  with  Lord  Dalhousie,  giving  his  views 
freely  on  each  question  as  it  came  up,  but  taking  especial  care 
to  lay  stress  on  his  brother’s  views  where  they  differed  from 
his  own.  His  heavy  office  work  was  perhaps  relieved,  rather 
than  increased,  by  news  which  seemed  to  promise  something 
of  an  adventure,  and  so  to  recall  the  long  bygone  days  of  Pani- 
put. 

Chuttur  and  Shere  Sing  had  been  allowed,  as  the  upshot  of 
the  long  controversy  between  Henry  Lawrence  and  Lord  Dal- 
housie, to  reside  in  their  own  homes  at  Attari,  but  they  were 
already,  so  it  was  believed  by  some  of  the  authorities  at  Lahore, 


849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


301 


feeling  their  way  towards  another  rising.  They  were  feeding 
day  by  day  a lot  of  Brahmins  and  Khuttris  ; messengers,  it  was 
reported,  were  passing  to  and  fro  between  Attari,  Sealkote,  and 
Umritsur,  where  others  of  the  fallen  Sirdars  were  living  ; and  it 
was  even  whispered  that  treasonable  communications  had  come 
from  Golab  Sing  in  Kashmere,  and  from  Dost  Mohammed  at 
Cabul.  ‘ Brahmins  and  barbers,’  says  John  Lawrence  to  Lord 
Dalhousie,  ‘ the  two  classes  of  people  who  are  usually  engaged 
in  all  kinds  of  intrigues,  have  been  repeatedly  seen  at  Attari.’ 
Here  was  a piece  of  work  which  might  have  been  safely  left  to 
the  local  officers,  but  the  spirit  of  the  man  who  had  tracked 
out  the  murderer  of  William  Fraser  was  awakened,  and  he  de- 
termined to  take  a chief  part  in  it  himself.  At  one  O’clock 
a.m.  on  the  morning  of  October  the  1st  he  started  on  the  enter- 
prise, accompanied  by  Montgomery,  Commissioner  of  Lahore, 
by  Edwardes,  by  Hodgson,  and  a small  force.  It  was  a clear 
moonlight  night,  and  a rapid  ride  brought  them  by  dawn  of  day 
to  the  spot.  They  quietly  surrounded  the  village,  arrested 
Chuttur  Sing  in  his  own  house  ; followed  up  and  arrested  his 
sons,  who  had  just  gone  out  to  ride  ; and  brought  the  whole 
party  back  in  triumph  to  Lahore,  before  anyone  in  the  city  had 
guessed  that  such  an  expedition  was  even  meditated.  The  other 
Sirdars  at  Umritsur  and  Sealkote  were  arrested  almost  simul- 
taneously. Arms  were  discovered  buried  in  various  places,  a 
suspicious  correspondence  with  Dost  Mohammed  and  with  Golab 
Sing,  ‘ a hart  of  many  tynes,’  as  Lord  Dalhousie  calls  kim,  was 
seized,  and  the  unfortunate  Sirdars  were  not  long  afterwards 
removed  to  a place  of  greater  safety  in  Hindustan. 

Bhai  Maharaja  Sing,  the  Guru  who  had  headed  the  outbreak 
in  the  Jullundur  Doab  in  the  preceding  year,  and  who,  after 
being  drowned,  as  it  was  reported,  in  the  Chenab,  had  lately 
come  to  life  and  light  again  at  Denanuggur,  was  finally  dis- 
posed of  about  the  same  time.  Like  Aristomenes  among  the 
Messenians  of  old,  after  one  of  his  miraculous  escapes,  or  like 
Schamyl,  under  similar  circumstances  among  the  Circassians, 
he  had  been  received  with  double  reverence  by  his  followers  on 
his  return  from  the  dead.  His  followers  carefully  concealed 
his  whereabouts,  and,  before  an  expedition  could  be  concerted 
against  him,  he  crossed  back  into  Jullundur,  where  he  was  ap- 
prehended by  Vansittart.  And,  with  his  disappearance  from 
the  scene,  there  passed  away  the  last  danger  of  any  rising  in  the 
Punjab. 


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1849-52 


Another  subject  which  occupied  very  much  of  John  Law- 
rence’s time  during  the  first  autumn  of  the  existence  of  the 
Board  was  the  preparation  of  an  elaborate  report,  in  which  he 
took  the  bold  step  of  advising  the  total  abolition  of  all  customs 
and  transit  duties  in  the  Punjab.  ‘ Our  true  policy,’  he  writes 
to  Lord  Dalhousie,  ‘ is  to  give  up  every  restriction  that  we  can 
possibly  do  without,  and  retain  the  land-tax.  By  this  means 
we  conciliate  the  masses,  and  especially  the  industrial  classes. 
Customs  levies  are  harassing  in  all  countries  ; in  this  country 
they  are  intolerable.’  After  a long  correspondence,  the  wished- 
for  reform  was  introduced,  and  trade  in  the  Punjab  was  hence- 
forth allowed  to  run  in  its  natural  channels,  freed  from  all  arti- 
ficial obstructions. 

But  that  which  gave  the  overburdened  Punjab  administration 
more  trouble  and  occupied  more  of  its  time  than  any  other  sub- 
ject during  this  first  year  of  its  existence,  was  the  attitude  taken 
up  towards  it  by  the  impracticable  genius  whom  the  outburst 
of  popular  indignation  after  the  battle  of  Chillianwallah  had 
summoned  from  England  to  the  command  of  the  Indian  army. 
‘ If  you  don’t  go,  I must,’  the  Duke  of  Wellington  is  reported 
to  have  said  to  Sir  Charles  Napier,  when  he  hesitated  to  accept 
the  post  which  was  offered  to  him.  His  scruples  were  soon 
overcome  ; his  ambition  was  fired ; and  he  went  out  revolving 
magnificent  schemes  of  conquest  and  reform,  which  were  not 
bounded  even  by  the  horizon  of  Irfdia.  He  landed  in  Calcutta 
on  May  6,  1849,  and  set  off  with  all  speed  for  Simla.  But  he 
was  already  a disappointed  man.  He  had  expected  to  find  war, 
and  he  found  peace.  Our  half-victorious  enemies  at  Chillian- 
wallah had  become  our  peaceful  and  half-contented  subjects  ; 
and  to  make  the  disappointment  more  complete,  the  conquered 
country  had  passed  under  the  control  of  those  ‘politicals’  upon 
whose  assumed  incapacity,  alike  in  peace  and  in  war,  the  con- 
queror and  pacificator  of  Scinde  had  never  ceased  to  pour  out 
the  vials  of  his  contempt  and  hatred.  * I would  rather,’  he 
wrote  to  his  brother  on  June  22,  ‘be  Governor  of  the  Punjab 
than  Commander-in-Chief.’  Fortunately,  or  unfortunately, 
he  could  not  now  be  Governor  of  the  Punjab ; and  in  his 
vexation  he  used  the  opportunities  which  his  post  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chicf  gave  him,  with  the  result,  if  not  with  the  in- 
tention, of  making  it  doubly  difficult  for  anyone  else  to  be  so 
either. 

His  biography,  written  by  his  admiring  brother  William,  and, 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


303 


still  mgre,  his  own  posthumous  work  on  ‘ Indian  Misgovern- 
ment,’  contain  a strange  medley  of  petulances,  egotisms,  and 
vagaries,  which  overlie  and  overshadow  the  flashes  of  insight, 
and  even  of  genius  imbedded  within  them.  These  two  works, 
together  with  the  voluminous  memoranda  and  counter-memo- 
randa of  Sir  Charles  Napier  himself,  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  and  of 
the  Punjab  Board,  together  also  with  the  letters  in  my  posses- 
sion which  passed  between  the  Lawrence  brothers  and  the  Gov- 
ernor-General, afford  an  embarrassing  wealth  of  materials  for 
this  portion  of  my  subject.  There  is  little  of  permanent  in- 
terest in  the  details  of  the  controversy.  But  its  echoes  may,  per- 
haps, still  be  heard  in  the  differences  which  separate  the  Scinde 
school  from  that  of  the  Punjab — the  supporters,  that  is,  of  a 
military  as  opposed  to  a civil  administration,  and  which  in  later 
times,  assuming  another  and  a more  serious  shape,  have  di- 
vided Indian  statesmen  into  two  groups — those  who,  in  view  of 
the  advance  of  Russia  towards  our  Indian  frontier,  Avould  push 
on  to  meet  her,  annexing  or  absorbing  Afghanistan  and  the 
adjacent  regions  in  the  process,  and  those  who,  clinging  with 
redoubled  firmness  to  the  natural  frontier  marked  out  by  the 
Indus  and  the  Suliman  Avail,  Avould  only  advance  into  the 
savage  country  AArhich  lies  beyond,  as  the  allies  of  the  inhabi- 
tants against  a threatened  inA'asion.  The  most  brilliant  repre- 
sentath-e  of  the  one  school  is,  perhaps,  Sir  Bartle  Frere;  the 
most  illustrious  representative  of  the  other  is,  beyond  all  ques- 
tion, Lord  LaAvrence.  The  contro\Tersy,  therefore,  has  a bear- 
ing on  the  AAhole  course  of  this  biography. 

That  a struggle  for  supremacy  Avould  take  place  betAveen  tAvo 
spirits  so  masterful  and  so  autocratic  as  those  of  the  Governor- 
General  and  the  Commander-in  Chief  might  ha\re  been  foreseen 
from  the  beginning.  But  it  AA7as  equally  clear  that  the  man 
Avho  Avas  armed  Avith  incontestably  superior  authority,  and  Avas 
capable  of  stern  self-control,  Avould  beat  out  of  the  field  the 
brilliant  and  unmanageable  old  soldier,  Avho  had  ‘ the  faculty  of 
believing  Avithout  a reason  and  of  hating  Avithout  a provocation 
and  Avas  disposed  to  think  nothing  right  unless  he  or  his  had 
the  doing  of  it.  Sir  Charles  Napier  A\*as  noAV  sixty-eight  years 
of  age — nearly  double,  that  is,  the  age  of  his  antagonist — but 
the  feeling  that  he  AAras  in  command  of  an  army  of  300,000 
men  made  him,  for  the  time,  feel  young  again  ; and,  in  spite 
of  a disease  which  Avas  ultimately  to  pro\re  fatal,  he  buckled 
doAvn  to  his  A\Tork  at  Simla,  sitting  at  his  desk,  as  he  tells  us 


304 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


himself,  for  some  fifteen  hours  a day.  At  his  very  first  inter- 
view with  the  Governor-General,  if  we  can  possibly  believe 
the  account  given  by  Sir  Charles  in  his  posthumous  work,  the 
spirit  of  antagonism  flashed  forth  between  them.  ‘ I have 
been  warned,’  said  Lord  Dalhousie,  ‘not  to  allow  you  to  en- 
croach on  my  authority,  and  I will  take  good  care  you 

do  not.’ 

But  a few  quotations  taken  almost  at  random  from  Sir 
Charles’s  own  letters  and  diaries,  written  at  the  time,  will  give 
a better  idea  than  any  lengthened  description  of  the  man  with 
whom  the  Punjab  Board — which  was  still  in  the  throes  of  its 
birth,  and  which  might  have  expected  gentler  treatment  from 
its  natural  guardians — had  now  to  deal. 

Governing  the  Punjab  (he  says,  writing  from  Calcutta  shortly  after 
his  arrival  on  May  22)  by  a court  of  ‘ politicals  ’ is  curious,  and  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  believed  that  Dalhousie  means  this.  . . . Instead  of 

tying  up  the  faggot  of  sticks  the  political  system  seems  to  untie  the  bun- 
dle. The  situation  of  the  troops  alarms  me,  they  are  everywhere  defi- 
cient in  cover  and,  of  course,  crowded.  . . . We  have  54,000  men 

in  the  Punjab.  This  is  not  necessary ; with  good  government,  20,000 
would  suffice,  but  not  with  a ‘ Board  of  Administration  ’ as  it  is  called  ! 
This  Board  has  not  yet  got  a police  ; and  it  has  18,000  men  as  guards, 
of  whom  neither  the  Commander-in-Chief  nor  the  Adjutant-General 
know  a word,  and  they  are  from  sixteen  to  one  hundred  miles  distant 
from  any  military  station. 

Again  : — 

Strange  as  it  seems,  I have  no  patronage.  Lord  Hardinge  raised 
eighteen  new  regiments,  and  did  not  give  Lord  Gough  the  disposal  of  a 
single  commission.  Lord  Dalhousie  has  raised  ten,  and  not  a commis- 
sion at  my  disposal ! Indeed,  they  were  all  given  away  before  I came. 
The  Governors-General  keep  these  things  for  themselves. 

On  August  2 he  writes  in  his  journal  : — 

Begun  a letter  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  telling  him  that  if  the  army  is  not 
relieved  from  the  pressure  of  the  civil  power  India  is  not  safe.  The 
habit  is  that  all  civil  servants  have  guards  of  honour,  and  treasury  guards, 
and  God  knows  what,  till,  when  added  to  the  military  guards  and  duties, 
the  soldiers  are  completely  knocked  up.  This  shall  not  go  on  if  I can 
stop  it,  and  Lord  Dalhousie  is  well  disposed  to  help  me.  He  seems  a 
good  fellow  and  sharp,  but  I doubt  his  abilities  being  equal  to  the  ruling 
of  this  vast  empire. 


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HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


305 


Such  was  Sir  Charles  Napier’s  opinion  of  Lord  Dalhousie. 
Here  is  his  opinion  of  the  Lawrences,  and  of  their  relation  to 
the  Governor-General : — 

The  Lawrences  have  been  forced  upon  Lord  Dalhousie  ; the  Punjab 
system  is  not  his — at  least  he  tells  me  so.  . . Henry  Lawrence  is  a 

good  fellow,  but  I doubt  his  capacity.  His  brother  John  is  said  to  be  a 
clever  man,  and  I am  inclined  to  think  he  is;  but  a man  may  have 
good  sense  and  not  be  fit  to  rule  a large  country. 

Here  is  his  description  of  his  own  position,  as  it  appeared 
to  himself : — 

I am  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Indian  army,  but  I cannot  order  a 
man  to  move.  I must  write  a letter  to  one  secretary,  who  writes  to 
another,  who  addresses  a third,  who  asks  the  Governor-General’s  leave 
to  move  the  company  back  from  Batalu.  The  house  that  Jack  built  is  a 
joke  to  it.  The  commander  of  300,000  men  can’t  move  three  companies 
out  of  danger  without  leave  from  the  civil  power  ! I will  not  stay  in 
India. 

And  here,  once  more,  is  his  description  of  himself  as  he 
ought  to  be — if  ever,  that  is,  his  ideal  commonwealth,  the 
counterpart  of  the  philosopher-kings,  or  king-philosophers,  of 
Plato  could  be  realised,  when  a Sir  Charles  Napier  should  be 
king  of  England,  or  the  king  of  England  should  be  a Sir 
Charles  Napier.  It  is  a curious  mixture  of  the  grand  and  the 
grotesque,  the  sublime  and  the  pathetic. 

Would  that  I were  king  of  India ! I would  make  Muscowa  and  Pekin 
shake.  . . . The  five  rivers  and  the  Punjab,  the  Indus  and  Scinde, 

the  Red  Sea  and  Malta ! what  a chain  of  lands  and  waters  to  attach 
England  to  India  ! Were  I king  of  England  I would,  from  the  palace  of 
Delhi,  thrust  forth  a clenched  fist  in  the  teeth  of  Russia  and  France. 
England’s  fleet  should  be  all  in  all  in  the  West,  and  the  Indian  army  all 
in  all  in  the  East.  India  should  not  belong  another  day  to  the  ‘ igno- 
minious tyrants,’  nor  should  it  depend  upon  opium  sales,  but  on  an  im- 
mense population  well  employed  in  peaceful  pursuits.  She  should  suck 
English  manufactures  up  her  great  rivers,  and  pour  down  those  rivers 
her  own  varied  products.  Kurrachi,  you  will  yet  be  the  glory  of  the 
East ! Would  that  I could  come  alive  again  to  see  you,  Kurrachi,  in 
your  grandeur ! 

As  for  the  high  Indian  authorities  who  were  opposed,  or — 
what  was  the  same  thing — whom  he  assumed  would  be  opposed, 
to  him,  his  views  of  them  are  equally  explicit. 

Vol.  I. — 20 


3°  6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


By  an  old  Indian  I mean  a man  full  of  curry  and  of  bad  Hindustani, 
with  a fat  liver  and  no  brains,  but  with  a self-sufficient  idea  that  no  one 
can  know  India  except  through  long  experience  of  brandy,  champagne, 
gram-fed  mutton,  cheroots,  and  hookahs.1 

It  was  with  such  feelings  towards  those  who  were  above,  and 
below,  and  around  him,  that  the  doughty  old  Commander-in- 
Chief  addressed  himself  to  the  military  tour  of  inspection  on 
which  he  started  from  Simla  on  October  13.  It  was  a tour  in- 
tended to  result  in  great  reforms,  and  was  full  of  growls  and 
grievances  of  every  description.  His  keen  eye  of  course  de- 
tected many  real  blots  in  the  military  system.  But  the  indis- 
criminate censure  he  poured  on  all  existing  arrangements 
minimised  the  effect  of  his  criticisms  where  they  were  really 
deserved.  The  barracks  no  doubt  needed  much  improvement 
everywhere.  But  his  remarks  on  ‘that  infernal  military 
Board,’  and  his  comparison  of  their  barracks  to  the  ‘ Black  Hole 
of  Calcutta  ’ and  to  ‘ slaughter-houses,’  were  certain  only  to 
Youse  the  ire  of  the  authorities,  and  to  cause  their  barracks  to 
remain  something  like  Black  Holes  and  slaughter-houses  still. 
Anyhow,  in  his  criticism  of  the  army  arrangements,  he  was 
speaking  of  that  which  lay  within  his  province,  and  with  which 
he  might  be  supposed  to  be  acquainted.  But  in  his  attack  on 
the  whole  of  the  Punjab  administration,  which  he  bound  up 
with  it,  he  was  speaking  of  that  of  which  he  knew,  and  was  de- 
termined to  know,  nothing  at  all.  It  should  be  remembered 
that,  when  he  began  to  write  his  attack,  he  had  paid  only  a 
flying  visit  of  two  days  to  the  Punjab  ; had  given  Henry  Law- 
rence only  one  private  interview  ; had  grudged  him  even  that  ; 
and  had  treated  the  information  he  had  given  him  with  undis- 
guised contempt.  Sincerely  believing  that  he  himself  was  the 
one  able  and  honest  man  in  India,  and  that  every  civil  adminis- 
trator, with  the  exception  of  Thomason  and  W.  Edwards,  who 
somehow  seem  to  have  got  on  his  soft  side,  was  either  a fool  or 
a knave,  and  probably  both,  it  was  not  likely  that  he  would  spare 
the  ‘ ignorant  civilians  and  brainless  politicals,’  ‘ the  gentlemen 
who  wore  red  coats  but  who  were  not  soldiers,’  who  had  de- 
prived him  of  the  chance  of  governing  the  Punjab,  as  he  had 
governed  Scincle,  and  whose  handiwork  he  now  had  it  in  his 
power  to  appraise.  And  so,  drawing  on  his  prejudices  for  his 
facts,  and  on  his  wishes  for  his  prophecies  of  the  future,  he  had 


1 See  Life  of  Sir  Charles  Napier , vol.  iv.  pp.  166,  170,  173,  181,  183,  208,  &c. 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


307 


no  difficulty  in  setting  before  Lord  Dalhousie  a sufficiently 
gloomy  picture  of  the  Punjab  as  it  was,  and  as  it  was  destined 
to  be. 

He  arrived  at  Lahore  on  November  30.  1 1 is  Report  was  not 

then  finished,  so  that  he  had  a chance  of  getting  information 
on  the  spot  from  those  who  were  most  competent  and  anxious 
to  give  it.  But  he  avoided  the  society  of  the  Lawrences,  de- 
clined to  discuss  any  public  matters  with  them,  and  returned 
no  answer  to  their  pressing  inquiries  as  to  that  on  which  so 
many  of  their  own  measures,  in  particular  the  line  taken  by  the 
Grand  Trunk  Road,  must  depend— his  military  arrangements 
for  the  province.  They  could  not  find  out  from  him  where  a 
single  cantonment  was  to  be,  nor  even  whether  they  were  or 
were  not  to  be  responsible  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier  and 
the  organisation  of  its  defenders.  He  would  allow  the  site  of 
no  cantonment  to  be  fixed  till  he  had  seen  it  with  his  own  eyes  ; 
and  this,  though  he  had  had  at  his  disposal  for  months  past  the 
eyes  and  the  experience  of  soldiers  like  Sir  Walter  Gilbert  and 
Sir  Colin  Campbell,  both  of  whom  held  high  commands  at  the 
time  in  the  Punjab. 

Such  being  the  circumstances  under  which  his  Report  was 
prepared  and  completed,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  its 
assertions  are  always  exaggerated  and  are  often  reckless  and 
untrue.  The  Sikhs — a fact  unknown  to  the  Punjab  Govern- 
ment and  to  everybody  else,  but  somehow  revealed  to  Sir 
Charles  Napier  for  the  purposes  of  his  Report — were,  he  said, 
daily  casting  guns  in  holes  in  the  jungles  and  meditating  revolt ! 
Golab  Sing’s  power  was  enormous — though  Henry  Lawrence 
had  written  to  him  from  Kashmere  giving  the  details  gathered 
on  the  spot,  demonstrating  the  exact  reverse — and  he  too  was 
preparing  for  war ! The  inhabitants  of  the  alpine  district  to 
the  north  of  the  Jullundur  Doab  were,  as  he  described  them, 
dissatisfied  Sikh  soldiers,  not,  as  they  really  were,  submissive 
and  contented  Rajpoots  ! The  discontent  shown  by  a few  regi- 
ments, first  at  Rawul  Pindi  and  afterwards  at  Wuzeerabad,  in 
connection  with  the  lowering  of  their  pay,  was  a perfectly  nat- 
ural incident  of  such  a change.  But  it  was  magnified  by  Sir 
Charles,  as  he  looked  back  upon  it  in  after  years,  into  a por- 
tentous and  premeditated  mutiny  of  some  thirty  battalions 
which,  had  he  not  been  there  to  deal  with  it,  might  have  threat- 
ened our  power  in  India  ; and  this,  though  Lord  Dalhousie,  who 
was  responsible  for  the  maintenance  of  that  power,  Sir  Walter 


3°3 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


Gilbert,  who  was  in  high  command  in  the  Punjab,  Henry  and 
John  Lawrence,  who  were  going  in  and  out  amongst  the  troops, 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  to  whom  the  evidence  of  the 
‘ mutiny ' was  afterwards  submitted  by  Sir  Charles  himself — all 
judged  it  to  be  the  creature  of  his  own  imagination.  The  force 
of  54,000  men  which  garrisoned  the  conquered  province,  and 
which,  if  he  were  Governor,  might,  he  said,  be  cut  down  at  once 
to  20,000,  and  soon  to  something  much  less,  it  was  necessary  to 
maintain  only  because  the  Punjab  Government  was  bad.  and 
because  another  insurrection  was  impending ! The  irregular 
troops,  police,  &c.,  who  were  independent  of  him,  and  who  did 
the  main  part  of  the  active  work  of  the  country,  were  nothing 
but  ‘ paid  idlers,’  who  gave  no  protection  at  all  to  the  civil  ser- 
vants of  the  Crown  ! ‘ In  military  matters,’  so  he  sums  up  his 

opinion,  ‘the  Punjab  Administration  is  only  worthy  of  censure, 
and  its  system  appears  to  me  clearly  tending  to  produce  early 
dislike  to  our  rule  and  possible  insurrection.  . . . The  gov- 

ernment is  feeble  and  expensive,  when  it  ought  to  be  strong  and 
economical.’  ‘ A large  revenue  and  a quiet  people,’  he  adds, 
with  an  honesty  which  was  habitual,  and  with  a modesty  which 
was  rare  in  him,  ‘ will  make  me  out  a false  prophet.’  But  mean- 
while the  upshot  of  the  whole  Report  was  that  the  Scinde  mil- 
itary system  ought  to  be  the  model  for  the  Punjab  and  for  the 
rest  of  India.  All  civil  government  was  self-condemned.1 

A document  of  this  character  could  not.  fail  to  arouse  the 
susceptibilities  of  Lord  Dalhousie.  It  touched  him  in  his 
tenderest  point ; for  the  Punjab  Government  was  his  own  cre- 
ation. But  the  annoyance  it  occasioned  was  not  unmixed  with 
pleasure,  for  it  gave  to  him,  as  well  as  to  the  members  of  the 
Board  who  were  more  directly  attacked,  an  opportunity,  which 
they  were  not  likely  to  neglect,  of  making  a crushing  rejoinder. 
The  Minute  of  the  Governor-General  has  been  published  by 
Sir  Charles  Napier  himself,  but  I am  not  aware  that  the  reply 
of  the  Board  has  ever  received  equal  publicity.  It  has  been 
preserved  among  Lord  Lawrence’s  private  papers,  and  I gather, 
from  internal  evidence  as  well  as  from  hints  dropped  here  and 
there  in  his  letters,  that  it  is  his  own  handiwork  throughout. 
It  is  a masterly  State  document,  studiously  moderate  in  tone, 
as  indeed  the  consciousness  of  a vast  reserve  of  strength  in  its 


1 See  Indian  Mis^overnmcnt,  by  Sir  Charles  Napier,  passim;  and  compare  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence's  answer  to  it  in  the  Calcutta  Review,  vol.  xxii. 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


309 


writer  well  enabled  it  to  be,  and  full  of  interest.  Want  of  space 
alone  prevents  my  reproducing  it  in  full.  To  quote  the  whole 
of  its  seventy-six  paragraphs  would  extend  this  biography  be- 
yond reasonable  limits,  and  the  other  alternative  of  quoting 
only  the  more  salient  passages  of  a paper,  each  paragraph  of 
which  depends  for  its  strength  on  its  close  connection  with  what 
has  gone  before  and  with  what  follows,  seems  to  me  to  be  doubly 
objectionable.  Such  a document,  if  it  is  to  be  judged  at  all, 
must  be  judged  as  a whole  ; and  it  may  perhaps  be  hoped  that 
this  and  other  of  Lord  Lawrence’s  weightier  State  papers,  whose 
length  precludes  them  from  more  than  a passing  notice  in  this 
biography,  may  some  day  see  the  light  in  a separate  volume. 
Events  move  quickly  even  in  the  East,  and  change  of  circum- 
stances may  already  have  caused  many  of  Lord  Lawrence’s 
views  to  seem  out  of  date,  but  the  essential  principles  underly- 
ing all  that  he  wrote  and  thought  and  did  will  be  as  true  a hun- 
dred years  hence  as  they  are  to-day  ; and  from  these  principles, 
as  from  a mine  of  wealth,  many  generations  of  Indian  statesmen 
may  gather  treasures  new  and  old,  learning  alike  what  is  the 
practical  ideal  at  which  Indian  rulers  ought  to  aim,  and  what 
are  the  dangers  which  it  most  behoves  them  to  avoid.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  quoting  here  any  disjointed  passages  of  John  Law- 
rence’s reply  to  Sir  Charles  Napier’s  attack,  I propose  only  to 
quote  a short  statement  which  seems  to  have  been  the  first  step 
towards  its  composition,  and  which  sums  up  in  accurate  but 
modest  language  what  the  Board  had  accomplished  and  what  it 
had  set  in  train  during  the  first  year  of  its  existence.  It  seems 
to  have  been  omitted  from  the  answer  in  its  final  shape,  chiefly 
because  the  Board  preferred  to  leave  the  accusation  that  its 
‘administration  was  weak  and  ineffectual’  to  the  ‘judgment  of 
the  Governor-General,  before  whom  a weekly  epitome  of  its 
acts  had  always  passed  in  review.’  It  is  a valuable  and  authentic 
record  of  work  done,  and  the  preceding  chapter  will  have  shown 
fully  how  the  promise  and  the  performances  of  this  first  year 
were  carried  out  and  more  than  justified  by  the  performances 
of  the  second  and  third. 

During  the  year  (says  John  Lawrence)  the  amount  of  work  disposed  of 
has  been  enormous.  The  whole  of  the  old  establishments  have  been 
mustered,  having  been  paid  their  arrears  extending  over  many  months, 
and  the  greater  portion  discharged.  Many  of  their  number  have  re- 
ceived gratuities,  and  not  a few  pensions. 

The  revenue  and  police  establishments  have  been  organised,  and  rules 


3io 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


simple  and  distinct  laid  down  for  their  guidance.  The  great  mass  of  the 
jagheer  tenures  have  been  examined,  reported  on,  and  disposed  of. 

Rules  for  the  investigation  and  disposal  of  all  disputes  which  may  arise 
between  the  jagheerdar  and  the  occupant  of  the  land  have  been  laid 
down.  The  military  contingents  have  been  mustered  and  disbanded, 
the  elite  being  re-enlisted  as  police-horse,  paid  by  Government.  The 
lands  assigned  for  their  support  have  been  recovered  to  the  State. 

Officers  have  been  appointed  to  fix  and  mark  off  the  village  boundaries 
preparatory  to  a survey  in  the  ensuing  cold  weather,  and  rules  for  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  rent-free  tenures  of  the  country  have  been  drawn  up 
and  circulated.  All  customs  dues  on  imports  and  exports  have  been  abol- 
ished, and,  with  the  single  exception  of  an  excise  on  salt  of  two  rupees 
per  maund  (eighty  pounds) — which  includes  the  price  of  excavation  and 
carriage  to  the  depot — the  whole  trade  of  the  Punjab  has  been  made  free. 
The  customs  alone  yielded  six  lacs  of  rupees  ; and,  perhaps,  double  that 
sum  would  barely  represent  the  relief  that  the  abolition  has  afforded  to 
the  people. 

Measures  have  also  been  proposed  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  old  cur- 
rencies, and  the  substitution  of  the  Company’s  rupee.  The  value  of  this 
measure  to  all  classes,  and  especially  to  the  agricultural  community,  who 
often  sold  their  produce  in  one  coin  and  paid  their  revenue  in  another, 
may  be  imagined,  when  it  is  recorded  that  of  the  Nanuk  Shahi  rupee 
alone  there  are  sixty  different  coinages  in  circulation,  and  of  other  cur- 
rencies full  fifty  more. 

Arrangements  have  also  been  made  for  the  gradual  and  easy  introduc- 
tion of  one  system  of  weights,  in  supersession  of  the  existing  systems, 
which  vary  in  every  town  and  every  village. 

Government  have  laid  aside  five  lacs  of  rupees  for  improvements.  II 
it  expends  annually  five  times  that  sum  in  opening  roads  and  excavating 
canals  for  the  next  ten  years,  the  revenue  will  probably  be  double  at  the 
end  of  that  period  ; and  such  an  expenditure  will  do  more  for  the  peace 
and  security  of  the  country  than  if  20,000  men  were  added  to  the  army. 
Already  the  engineer  staff  is  organized,  and  parties  are  out  surveying  in 
the  Bari  Doab. 

The  existing  revenue  assessment,  as  made  by  our  officers  in  1847,  has 
been  maintained,  and  where  it  did  not  extend,  as  in  Mooltan  and  the 
other  districts  formerly  under  Moolraj,  it  will  be  completed  by  the  end 
of  the  year.  Such  a measure  must  be  hailed  with  the  utmost  satisfaction 
by  the  agriculturists,  who  would  otherwise  have  been  preyed  on  by  a 
host  of  harpies,  collecting  the  Government  tax  in  kind. 

All  these  great  measures  must  have  an  immediate  tendency  to  in- 
crease the  material  comforts  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  to  reconcile 
them  to  our  rule.  As  conquerors,  it  cannot  be  possible  that  those  whose 
power  wc  have  subverted  can,  in  the  present  generation,  be  reconciled 
to  us.  There  are  large  bodies  of  soldiers  and  officials  whom  the  change 
of  rule  has  deprived  of  service.  It  is  only  by  opening  out  new  means  of 
subsistence  that  wc  can  hone  that  such  classes  will  cease  from  attempt- 


iS49-S2 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


31 1 

ing  to  effect  a revolution  by  force  and  intrigue.  These  great  changes 
have  been  made  without  any  noise  or  commotion  of  any  kind  ; they  are 
hardly  known  to  the  majority  of  our  own  countrymen  ; they  possess  not 
the  glitter  of  military  conquest,  but  they  are  nevertheless  felt  and  appre- 
ciated by  those  whom  they  are  intended  so  greatly  to  benefit. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  Punjab  is  not  in  a condition  for  civil  gov- 
ernment— that  it  should  be  ruled  by  military  law,  and  its  inhabitants 
subjected  to  the  blessings  of  court-martials.  We  hope  that  those  who 
have  these  opinions  will  not  endeavour  to  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of 
their  own  prophecies  ; we  had  almost  written,  their  own  wishes.  Let 
the  Administration  but  receive  the  aid  and  support  which  its  acts  de- 
serve and  which  its  measures  justify,  and  we  will  fearlessly  predict  that 
the  country  will  gradually  settle  down  with  peace  and  security,  and  re- 
cover that  wealth,  and  happiness,  of  which,  as  the  high  road  of  invasion 
from  Central  Asia,  and  as  the  battlefield  of  Hindu  and  Mohammedan, 
it  has  so  long  been  deprived. 

It  was  well  for  the  peace  of  the  official  world  in  India  that 
neither  of  the  documents  of  which  I have  been  speaking  saw 
the  light  till  after  December,  1849  ; tor  in  that  month  the  august 
antagonists  were  all  thrown  together  at  Lahore.  It  was  one  of 
the  earliest  visits  which  the  Governor-General  had  paid  to  the 
capital  of  the  province  he  had  annexed.  Henry  Lawrence  hur- 
ried back  from  Kashmere  to  be  in  time  to  receive  him  there, 
and  Sir  Charles  Napier  arrived,  as  I have  already  stated,  in  the 
course  of  his  military  tour  of  inspection.  The  presence  of  a 
common  foe  drew  Lord  Dalhousie  and  Henry  Lawrence  more 
closely  together  than  might  otherwise  have  been  the  case,  and 
Sir  Charles  Napier  appears  to  have  occupied  most  of  his  time 
in  ridiculing  the  fortifications  of  Lahore  proposed  by  the  Board, 
and  in  proposing  counter-fortifications  of  his  own.  It  was  an 
amusement  which  Henry  Lawrence  afterwards  retorted  on  him, 
and  as  it  seems,  with  reason  on  his  side,  in  the  pages  of  the  ‘ Cal- 
cutta Review’  (January,  1854).  The  pressing  questions  of  the 
frontier  force  and  of  the  cantonments,  even  those  of  the  capital 
itself,  still  remained  unsettled.  The  oracle  was  dumb,  and,  till 
it  could  be  induced  to  speak,  all  other  arrangements  were  neces- 
sarily suspended. 

How  the  matter  ended  I am  able  to  relate  on  the  authority 
of  an  eye-witness  and  a principal  actor  in  it.  The  story  has 
never,  I believe,  been  told  till  now,  and  it  is  highly  characteris- 
tic of  Sir  Charles  Napier. 

One  day,  towards  the  end  of  his  stay  in  Lahore,  the  three 
members  of  the  Board  and  Montgomery,  who  was  then  Com- 


312 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


missioner  of  the  Lahore  division,  happened  to  be  taking  their 
early  morning  ride  together,  when  in  the  distance  they  saw  the 
Commander-in-Chief  and  his  Staff  similarly  employed.  ‘ Let 
us  go  straight  up  to  him,’  said  Henry  to  John  Lawrence,  ‘and 
see  if  we  cannot  manage  to  get  an  answer  out  of  him  at  last 
about  the  cantonments  for  Lahore.’  They  did  so.  ‘ You  want 
to  know  where  the  cantonments  are  to  be,  do  you  ? ’ said  Sir 
Charles  ; ‘ follow  me  then  ; ’ and,  as  he  spoke,  he  dug  his  spurs 
into  his  horse  and  rode  off  as  hard  as  he  could  go,  neck  or  noth- 
ing, across  country  some  three  or  four  miles.  His  Staff  fol- 
lowed him  as  best  they  could,  and  Henry  Lawrence,  John  Law- 
rence, Mansel,  and  Montgomery,  who  were  probably  not  so 
well  mounted,  followed  as  they  too  best  could,  behind.  It  was 
a regular  John  Gilpin  ride,  composed  not  of  post-boys,  and  of 
‘ six  gentlemen  upon  the  road,’  crying  ‘ Stop  thief  ! ’ but  of  the 
most  august  personages,  civil  and  military,  in  the  Punjab.  At 
last  the  old  General  reined  in  his  horse  in  the  middle  of  the  plain, 
to  all  appearance  at  simple  haphazard,  and  when  the  last  of 
the  long  pursuit  came  up,  he  cried  out  from  the  midst  of  smok- 
ing steeds  and  breathless  riders,  ‘You  asked  me  where  the  can- 
tonments are  to  be  ; they  are  to  be  here.’  As  ill  luck  would 
have  it,  he  had  pitched  on  a bit  of  ground  which  was  particu- 
larly marshy  and  pestilential.  But  the  word  was  spoken,  and 
it  was  only  by  a stretch  of  authority  that  the  Engineers  em- 
ployed to  construct  the  cantonments  managed  to  draw  them 
back  a little  from  a rather  more  to  a rather  less  unhealthy  spot. 
Such  was  the  origin  of  the  famous  cantonments  of  Mean  Meer  ! 

This  matter  settled,  Sir  Charles  was  able  to  pursue  his  mili- 
tary tour.  Accompanied  by  John  Lawrence,  he  paid  a visit  to 
Jummoo  and  had  an  interview  with  Golab  Sing.  ‘The  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  was  kind  and  courteous,’  says  his  companion, 
while  the  redoubtable  Maharaja  was,  ‘if  possible,  more  civil  and 
amiable  than  ever.’  Sir  Charles  moved  onwards,  as  he  delight- 
ed to  reflect,  over  the  ground  which  had  been  traversed  by 
Alexander  the  Great,  to  Wuzeerabad,  Jhelum,  Rawul  Pindi,  and 
Peshawur.  At  Wuzeerabad  he  obtained  fresh  evidence,  as  he 
thought,  of  the  mutinous  disposition  of  the  Sepoys,  and  at 
Peshawur  he  struck  up  a considerable  friendship  with  George 
J.awrence,  the  officer, in  charge.  ‘A  right  good  fellow,’ Sir 
Charles  calls  him,  Lawrence  though  he  was,  and  guilty  though 
he  had  also  been  of  the  unpardonable  offence  of  ‘trying  the  ad- 
vising scheme’  with  him.  Some  small  military  operations  were 


1 849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


313 


just  then  in  progress  against  the  Afridis  of  the  famous  Kohat 
pass.  These  wild  mountaineers  had  ceded  to  us  the  right  of 
making  a road  through  their  country  on  payment  of  a stipu- 
lated sum  ; they  had  taken  the  money,  and  then,  after  their 
fashion,  had  fallen  by  night  on  the  detachment  of  sappers  and 
miners  who  were  employed  in  the  work,  had  cut  the  ropes  of 
the  tent  in  which  the  wearied  men  lay  sleeping,  and,  before 
they  could  disengage  themselves,  had  stabbed  them  all  to 
death.  Sir  Charles  joined  in  the  operations,  which,  inconsider- 
able enough  in  themselves,  are  only  memorable  for  the  war  of 
words  which  sprung  up  respecting  them  as  soon  as  the  sword 
was  sheathed  •,  the  Commander-in  Chief  asserting  that,  but  for 
him,  the  two  regiments  employed  would  have  been  annihilated 
by  the^folly  of  the  Board,  and  the  Board  retorting  that  there 
had  been  no  serious  fighting  at  all,  and  that  Sir  Charles  had 
been  escorted  back  in  safety  to  Peshawur  by  Coke  and  Pollock, 
rather  than  they  by  Sir  Charles.  In  any  case,  it  was  the  last 
time  that  the  grand  old  soldier  was  under  fire,  and  during  his 
military  tour,  tempestuous  as  it  was,  he  managed  to  confer  at 
least  two  benefits  on  the  country.  He  cut  down,  for  the  time, 
the  extravagant  retinue  which  had  usually  accompanied  the 
Commander-in-Chief  when  he  was  on  the  march,  and  which 
had  often  preyed,  like  a swarm  of  locusts,  on  the  districts 
through  which  it  had  advanced.  And,  secondly,  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  inducing  Lord  Dalhousie  to  lessen  the  danger  of 
combination  among  the  Sepoys,  by  enlisting  some  Ghoorkas 
along  with  them.  ‘ Like  Brennus,’  as  he  said  himself,  he  threw 
‘ the  sword  of  these  redoubtable  little  warriors  into  the  scale 
and  the  experiment,  in  spite  of  the  misgivings  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie and  Henry  Lawrence,  has  been  abundantly  justified  by 
its  success.  In  whatever  part  of  our  Empire  the  Ghoorkas 
have  been  called  upon  to  draw  the  sword  in  our  defence  they 
have  done  us  excellent  sendee. 

During  the  absence  of  Lord  Dalhousie  at  sea,  Sir  Charles 
Napier,  acting  as  if  he  were  Governor-General,  took  upon  him- 
self to  suspend  a Government  order  relating  to  the  pay  of  the 
troops.  It  was  an  outrageous  usurpation  of  authority,  which 
was  followed  by  a severe  rebuke  from  the  Governor-General  on 
his  return,  by  the  immediate  resignation  of  Sir  Charles,  and  by 
the  acceptance  of  that  resignation  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
who  had  urged  him  to  go  out  to  India,  but  who  now,  without 
any  hesitation,  pronounced  him  to  be  in  the  wrong.  So  passed 


3 [4 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


from  India  the  grand  old  veteran.  His  sun  set,  as  indeed  it 
had  shone  for  many  a long  day,  in  the  midst  of  a stormy  sea, 
and  the  final  outpouring  of  his  wrath  in  his  posthumous  publi- 
cation, kept  up  the  after-swell  for  years  after  his  turbulent 
spirit  had  been  laid  to  rest  in  the  grave. 

A few  extracts  from  John  Lawrence’s  letters  written  during 
this  period  will  throw  light  on  his  personal  relations  to  the  two 
chief  antagonists,  on  the  views  he  took  of  the  most  pressing 
questions  of  the  day,  on  his  relations  to  his  subordinates,  and  on 
the  multifarious  duties  which  fell,  in  sickness  and  in  health 
alike,  on  his  own  willing  shoulders.  Here  is  his  view  of  the 
frontier-force  question,  a view  different  from  that  of  his  brother 
and  from  that  which  ultimately  prevailed. 

To  Lord  Dalhousie. 

, * December  18,  1849. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  is  still  here,  and  no  one  knows  when  he  will 
start.  He  has  not  answered  my  brother’s  note  about  the  frontier,  and 
the  Irregulars.  I have  thought  a good  deal  about  the  matter  since  I saw 
your  Lordship,  and  I confess  that  on  the  whole  I would  prefer  that  the 
Commander-in-Chief  kept  the  frontier  himself.  I think  my  brother’s 
arrangement  a good  one,  and  perfectly  feasible,  if  carried  out  as  a 
whole  ; but  I fear  that  if  we  had  to  do  the  work  we  shall  have  but  a por- 
tion of  what  he  asks  for.  I do  not  covet  military  honour  ; indeed,  I 
rather  shrink  from  it.  Every  civil  and  political  officer  who  has  to  meddle 
in  such  matters  does  it  with  a rope  round  his  neck.  The  honour  and  profit 
belong  to  the  military ; the  disgrace  and  damage  to  the  political.  Irreg- 
ulars are,  I believe,  better  adapted  for  all  partisan  warfare  than  Regu- 
lars ; but  I believe  in  my  heart  that  if  the  Irregulars  kept  the  border 
under  us,  we  should  not  be  backed  up  by  many  officers  with  the  Regu- 
lars as  we  ought  to  be,  and  as  will  be  essentially  necessary.  I should 
like  to  see  the  military  do  their  work,  and  the  civil  officers  theirs.  The 
frontier  is  the  post  of  danger,  and  therefore  the  post  of  honour,  and  it 
seems  to  be  an  anomaly  giving  it  to  us.  We  have  now  54,000  Regular 
and  Irregular  troops  in  the  Punjab,  and  shall  have  little  short  of  20,000 
of  the  new  levies.  This  seems  to  me  an  excessive  number  for  such  a 
country. 

Three  days  later  he  writes  in  much  the  same  strain  : — 

The  Commander-in-Chief  starts  to-morrow  ; he  seems,  as  far  as  I can 
judge,  to  be  no  nearer  to  a decision  regarding  the  distribution  of  troops 
and  the  new  cantonments  than  before.  It  seems  to  me  quite  clear 
that  little  or  nothing  can  be  done  this  year  unless  it  is  done  at  once. 
. . . If  he  requires  all  the  troops  he  has  in  the  Punjab  because  it  has 

a civil  government,  with  what  consistency  does  lie  mass  them  all  along 


i349-S2 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


315 


the  Peshawur  road,  leaving  four-fifths  of  the  country  without  troops  ? I 
suspect  he  is  beginning  to  see  that  Golab  is  not  so  formidable  or  so 
bent  on  war  as  he  supposed.  1 shall  leave  Lahore  for  Sealkote  to-mor- 
row and  pay  the  Maharaja  a visit,  and  then  return  here.  I expect  to  be 
absent  about  ten  days.  There  is  a report  here  that  the  32nd  Native  In- 
fantry have  mutinied  at  Wuzeerabad,  but  1 trust  that  the  report  is  exag- 
gerated. I think  my  brother  judges  rightly  when  he  says  we  should  not 
collect  our  native  troops  in  great  masses.  Brigades  seem  all  very  well  ; 
eight  or  ten  corps  together  are  not  safe,  especially  when  they  have  noth- 
ing to  do. 

And  again,  January  3,  1850  : — 

The  way  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  distributing  the  troops,  or  rather 
leaving  them,  seems  as  if  he  would  wish  to  have  a row,  that  he  might 
step  in  and  have  the  glory  of  quelling  it.  He  says  the  civil  government 
necessitates  the  presence  of  so  many  troops,  and  yet  he  masses  them 
with  reference  to  the  Afghans  and  Golab  Sing!  Your  Lordship  is 
astounded  at  our  request  for  more  civil  corps.  With  a different  distri- 
bution of  the  regular  army  such  would  not  be  required,  and  that,  too, 
without  employing  them  on  civil  duty.  Six  thousand  infantry  and  2,500 
cavalry  would  then  be  abundance,  I should  say.  Your  Lordship  is 
aware  of  my  views  as  regards  the  protection  of  the  frontier.  One  of  the 
great  objections  to  the  civil  officers  guarding  it,  seems  to  me  to  arise 
from  the  circumstance  that  it  takes  them  too  much  from  their  legitimate 
duties.  They  have  not  time  to  be  both  soldiers  and  civilians,  even  if 
they  had  the  genius  and  the  knowledge,  and  the  consequence  will  be 
that  the  latter  duties  will  be  neglected. 

The  following  passage  is  interesting  chiefly  as  showing  that 
the  jagheerdars  of  the  Punjab  did  not  get  quite  such  hard  meas- 
ure from  Lord  Dalhousie  as  is  usually  supposed. 

The  arrangements  regarding  jagheers,  as  lately  received  from  your 
Lordship,  have  given  much  satisfaction,  and  have  exceeded  all  expecta- 
tion. A Sikh  Sirdar  remarked  to  me  that  they  had  got  more  than  Run- 
jeet  Sing  ever  would  have  given  them,  and  that  too  free  of  all  service. 
He  remarked  that  when  Hurri  Sing,  the  bravest  Sikh  Sirdar,  was  killed 
fighting  against  the  Afghans,  Runjeet  Sing  actually  confined  his  wives 
till  they  gave  up  his  wealth  ! The  customs  abolition  will  also,  I am  sat- 
isfied, be  hailed  with  great  satisfaction,  especially  by  the  mass  of  the 
people,  whose  material  interests  will  be  immediately  improved  by  the 
change.  We  now  only  want  our  canals  to  change  the  face  of  the  coun- 
try. If  your  Lordship  had  a doubt  on  the  point,  your  trip  to  Mooltan 
will,  I think,  have  removed  it.  Robert  Napier  is  here  at  work.  Poor 
fellow  ! he  has  just  lost  his  wife. 


3i  6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


To  Lieutenant  James,  who  had  served  four  years  in  Scinde, 
the  greater  part  of  them  in  civil  employ,  and  was  hereafter  to 
be  one  of  John  Lawrence’s  ablest  subordinates  in  the  Punjab, 
he  writes  two  long  letters  asking  for  full  particulars  of  the  Scinde 
administration.  For  he  thought  it  advisable,  while  defending 
himself  from  the  attacks  of  Sir  Charles  Napier,  to  carry  the  war 
into  the  enemy’s  country.  I quote  some  extracts,  partly  as 
showing  his  insatiable  appetite  for  minute  detail  and  the  care 
he  took  to  find  out  what  a man  was  worth  before  he  invited  him 
into  the  Punjab  ; partly  as  indicating  the  spirit  in  which  he  ap- 
proached the  Scinde  question,  anxious  to  give  full  credit  to 
what  was  good  and  to  make  allowance  for  what  was  bad  in  his 
opponent’s  rule. 

I want  you  to  let  me  know  what  kind  of  officer  Captain  Fleming,  in 
Scinde,  is  ? Is  he  an  able  civil  officer  ? Does  he  understand  revenue 
matters  properly?  Is  he  a man  for  Batai,  and  farms  or  assessments 
with  the  village  community  ? Kindly  answer  these  queries,  and  also  say 
if  he  is  strong  in  mind  and  body — that  is,  can  he,  and  will  he,  work  hard  ? 

I wish  you  would  give  some  idea  of  the  Scinde  system  past  and  pres- 
ent— that  is,  under  Sir  Charles  Napier  and  under  Pringle  ; particularly 
under  the  former.  He  is  a first-rate  soldier  and  a man  of  great  capacity 
generally.  But  I cannot  understand  how  he  could  have  managed  the 
civil  details.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  language,  the  customs,  or  the 
habits  of  the  people  ; of  revenue  customs  or  police  arrangements,  though 
the  latter  depends  more  on  good  sense.  Brown,  his  secretary,  I knew 
well  ; he  was  a fine  fellow,  but  was  certainly  not  cut  out  for  a secretary. 
Then  his  district  officers  must,  in  the  first  instance,  have  had  no  civil 
training.  I confess,  when  I think  of  all  this  I feel  surprised,  not  at  the 
alleged  defects  in  the  system,  but  that  anything  worthy  of  being  called  a 
system  was  carried  out. 

I think  I have  heard  that  all  the  land-tax  was  collected  in  grain,  not 
at  a fixed  quota  for  each  village,  but  by  Batai  (division  of  the  crop)  ; but 
that  lately  they  have  begun  to  introduce  a three  years’  settlement.  Is 
this  the  case?  If  so,  up  to  what  year  did  the  grain  system  continue? 
what  did  you  do  with  it  all  ? Did  it  not  work  ill  ? Were  not  Government 
and  the  people  both  plundered,  particularly  the  former  ? Customs — what 
customs  did  you  collect?  Import  or  export  only,  or  transit  also?  Had 
you  any  town  duties  ? 

Police  system — briefly  describe  it.  Judicial — you  had  assistant  dis- 
trict officers  ; and  the  Governor — who  was  the  executive,  the  district  of- 
ficer or  the  assistant  ? — that  is,  did  the  latter  carry  out  all  details  and  the 
district  officer  act  as  a kind  of  judge,  and  hear  appeals  ? as  is  the  case  in 
Madras,  I believe  ; or  was  it  like  our  Bengal  system,  the  district  officer 
being  the  responsible  executive,  while  the  assistants  were  his  aids  ? In 


S49-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


317 


this  case,  who  heard  appeals  ? If  the  Governor  did,  he  must  have  had 
an  English  translation  of  every  one  sent  up.  How  could  you  afford  time 
for  this  ? Did  the  Governor  ever  hold  courts  himself  ? If  so,  what  trials 
did  he  hear  ? Cases  that  go  to  our  commissioners,  how  disposed  of  ? 

Finance — what  do  you  consider  was  the  bona-fide  revenue  of  Scinde  ? 
What  its  civil  expenses,  including  police  corps  ? I do  not  expect  exact 
amounts  ; an  approximation  will  suffice.  If  the  revenue  was  forty  lacs, 
for  instance,  was  the  civil  expenditure  one-half,  a third,  or  a quarter  ? 
Kindly  give  me  a reply  to  this  letter  the  first  leisure  half  hour. 

A very  long  ‘half-hour’s  work  ’ was  thus  cut  out  for  James, 
but  his  answer  came  within  ten  days — that  is,  pretty  nearly  by 
return  of  post,  and  called  forth  another  torrent  of  queries  and 
suggestions  from  John  Lawrence.  I extract  from  them  the  fol- 
lowing only  : — 

I have  heard  something  of  the  three  collectors  and  their  discussions. 
What  a system  for  such  a man  as  Sir  Charles  to  advocate!  Judicial — 
you  flogged  and  fined  up  to  500  rupees  without  record  or  power  of  ap- 
peal. I fear  some  of  your  men  must  have  done  much  harm.  There  was 

a Mr. under  me  in  the  Jullundur  who  had  been  in  Scinde,  and  I saw 

some  terrible  cases  of  oppression  by  him  in  this  way,  to  which  I speedily 
put  a stop.  ...  I think  a good  article  on  Scinde,  written  in  a fair 
and  liberal  spirit,  entering  into  details  fully,  pointing  out  its  merits  and 
demerits  truthfully,  would  be  read  with  great  interest  and  be  very  ac- 
ceptable, particularly  just  now. 

John  Lawrence’s  formal  answer  to  Sir  Charles  Napier’s  at- 
tack appears  to  have  been  finished  towards  the  end  of  March, 
and,  tvriting  to  Lord  Dalhousie  on  the  31st,  he  speaks  thus 
of  it  : — 

I hope  your  Lordship  will  approve  of  our  answer  to  Sir  Charles  Na- 
pier’s paper.  We  might  have  said  a great  deal  more,  but  were  anxious 
to  be  as  amiable  as  possible.  A defensive  fight  is  usually  a losing  one, 
in  politics  as  in  war  ; the  assailant  has  many  advantages.  He  has  the 
immense  one  of  a great  name.  I believe  he  did  in  Scinde  wonderfully 
well  ; perhaps  as  well,  if  not  better,  than  anyone  under  similar  difficul- 
ties could  have  done.  But  to  suppose  that  a man  ignorant  of  the  man- 
ners, customs,  habits,  and  language  of  a people,  with  untrained  men 
under  him,  could  really  have  governed  a country  as  he  thinks  he  did 
Scinde,  seems  to  me  an  impossibility.  He  has  always  had  one  great  ad- 
vantage, namely,  that  he  tells  his  own  story.  A man  may  make  a good 
many  mistakes,  and  still  be  a better  ruler  than  an  Ameer  of  Scinde. 

His  remarks  upon  the  Afridi  troubles  bring  forcibly  before 
us  some  of  the  difficulties  in  dealing  with  such  barbarous  tribes 


318 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


— difficulties  which  his  own  wise  administration  and  that  of  his 
successors  have  progressively  tended  to  diminish,  though  they 
cannot  be  said  to  be  finally  settled  even  now.  They  show  also 
that  he  was  not  backward  to  advocate  offensive  measures  against 
the  border  tribes  where  they  were  necessary. 

The  present  state  of  Kohat  is  far  from  satisfactory.  I much  fear 
that  nothing  we  can  do  will  bring  the  Afridis  to  their  senses  ; but 
another  expedition  may  do  so  if  made  with  deliberation  and  with  a suffi- 
cient force.  The  Commander-in-Chief,  who  declared  on  his  first  ar- 
rival at  Peshawur  that,  were  he  not  tied  hand  and  foot,  he  would,  within 
a week,  be  on  his  way  to  Kabul,  is  now  for  peace,  for  treaties  and  pay- 
ments. If  peace  and  security  were  even  probably  to  be  obtained  in  this 
way,  it  would  be  well  worth  the  trial.  But  your  Lordship  may  depend 
on  it  that  neither  Scindis  nor  Afghans  are  thus  to  be  managed.  You 
must  thrash  them  soundly,  first,  before  they  will  respect  you.  A little 
money  judiciously  expended  among  the  heads  of  the  clans  would  then 
prove  useful.  But  there  are  many  drawbacks  to  the  paying  system.  The 
very  fact  that  an  influential  man  receives  our  pay  tends  to  lessen  his  in- 
fluence. It  is  very  difficult  to  know  whom  to  pay,  for  power  and  influence 
are  continually  changing  hands.  The  more  we  expend  the  more  we  are 
expected  to  give.  Lord  Auckland  spent  lacs  of  rupees  in  this  way  at 
Herat,  Kabul,  and  in  the  Khvber,  and  all  to  little  or  no  purpose.  It  is 
certainly  a difficult  thing  for  a ‘political’  to  advocate  offensive  measures 
when  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  for  peace ; but  I much  fear  that  they 
are  necessary.  We  cannot  exasperate  the  Afridis  more  than  we  have 
done,  whereas,  by  punishing  them  well,  we  may  make  them  fear  us, 
which  now  they  do  not  do.  I take  the  liberty  of  enclosing  a letter  I re- 
ceived from  Sir  Colin  Campbell.  It  gives  his  views  of  the  Afridis,  and 
the  comparative  value  of  the  new  irregular  corps  and  our  own  native  in- 
fantry. I am  myself  quite  satisfied  of  the  superiority  of  the  former,  es- 
pecially for  all  hill  work.  Our  Oudh  men  are  not  equal,  man  to  man, 
to  the  people  of  this  country,  and  both  parties  know  it. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  having,  for  a brief  interval,  ceased 
from  troubling,  John  Lawrence  found  time,  on  April  26,  to 
write  to  Thomason,  the  distinguished  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
the  North-West  Provinces,  on  what  was  more  particularly  his 
own  subject,  the  manner  in  which  the  revenue  survey  and  set- 
tlement of  the  whole  of  the  Punjab,  which  was  then  in  contem- 
plation, could  best  be  set  on  foot.  The  subject  is  one  of  great 
interest  and  importance  ; for  the  settlement  is  the  foundation 
of  everything  else  in  a newly  annexed  country.  But  it  is  not 
easy  to  make  it  intelligible  to  the  general  reader.  I therefore 
only  quote  the  concluding  passage  of  his  letter.  The  request 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


319 


made  in  it,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  had  no  slight  influence  on 
the  futures  of  the  men  concerned. 

Kindly  let  me  know  what  your  views  are  on  these  subjects.  I have 
stated  mine  fully,  though  I know  that  my  experience  on  such  matters  is 
slight  as  compared  with  your  own  ; but  it  will  do  no  harm  your  knowing 
them.  Further,  I want  to  know  if  you  will  object  to  give  us  Temple  for 
a settlement  officer  for  the  Jetch  Doab  under  Edward  Thornton.  1 know 
that  you  prize  Temple.  It  will  be  a greater  act  of  generosity  letting  us 
have  him.  We  are  greatly  in  want  of  good  men  ; the  whole  success  of 
our  administration  hinges  upon  getting  them. 

About  this  time  John  Lawrence  was  summoned  by  Lord  Dal- 
housie  to  Simla,  and  his  reply,  May  1,  1850,  shows  something 
of  the  difficulty  with  which  he  was,  even  then,  struggling  at 
Lahore. 

I shall  be  very  happy  to  come  up  to  Simla  and  wait  on  your  Lordship, 
and  I am  quite  sure  that  if  I could  stay  there  for  a little  time  it  would  do 
me  good.  But  the  work  here  is  so  heavy,  and  I have  so  little  hope  of  its 
being  carried  out  according  to  my  own  views,  that  I think  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  stay  as  short  a time  as  possible.  Since  the  division  of  labour  we 
have  all,  I think,  worked  more  satisfactorily  ; but  there  are  many  ques- 
tions on  which  each  man  wishes  to  carry  out  his  own  views,  and  in  such 
cases,  mine,  in  my  absence,  would  necessarily  not  be  thought  of.  I shall 
arrange  to  work  my  own  department  while  away,  and  where  this  is  not 
to  be  done  leave  returns  against  the  time  when  I come  back.  I propose 
leaving  this  on  Wednesday  morning,  and  I hope  to  get  up  to  Simla  by 
Saturday.  I trust  that  this  delay  will  not  be  objected  to  by  your  Lord- 
ship.  ...  1 was  glad  to  see  in  the  ‘ Overland  ’ yesterday  that  Sir 

Robert  Peel  had  spoken  so  handsomely  of  the  Civil  Service  at  the  great 
dinner  to  Lord  Gough.  It  is  a satisfaction  to  see  that  in  England  some 
merit  may  be  attached  to  anything  besides  a red  coat. 

The  visit  to  Simla  was  paid.  It  only  lasted  a fortnight,  and 
a great  amount  of  work  was  done  during  it.  But  the  change 
did  John  Lawrence  good,  and  helped  him  through  a long  and 
trying  summer.  Speaking  of  an  officer  who  was  anxious  to  get 
a political  charge  on  the  frontier,  and  also  to  be  made  a magis- 
trate, as  he  had  been  in  Scinde,  he  says  to  Lord  Dalhousie  on 
July  3 : — 

He  is  a fine  soldier,  but  not  at  all  cut  out,  I should  say,  for  civil  work, 
nor  would  such  a place  as  he  wishes  ever  answer.  No  man  can  serve 
two  masters.  Moreover,  in  such  arrangements  there  is  this  inherent 
evil,  that  it  gives  a soldier  great  facilities  for  getting  up  a disturbance,  if 


320 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


so  inclined.  Anything  like  an  impcriiim  in  imperio  is  also  bad,  and  sure 
to  bring  on  a collision  between  the  district  officer  and  such  roving  magis- 
trates. Our  officers,  when  they  have  nothing  else  to  say  against  a civil 
officer,  are  sometimes  inclined  to  sneer  at  his  youth.  Youth  in  itself  is 
no  fault  in  an  executive  officer.  If  a man  knows  his  work,  and  has  been 
properly  trained,  it  is  an  advantage  in  a country  like  India,  where  indol- 
ence and  apathy  are  the  prevailing  defects.  We  daily  see  instances 
where  age  and  experience  do  not  go  together.  When  both  are  inex- 
perienced I would  infinitely  prefer  a young  to  an  old  man ; for  the 
former  is  more  apt  to  learn,  while  the  latter  is  wedded  to  preconceived 
notions. 

A passage  in  a letter  of  July  22  gives  some  slight  idea  of  the 
inordinate  pressure  under  which  every  officer,  high  and  low,  in 
the  Punjab,  was  expected,  during  these  eventful  years  to  work 
and  live.  The  Lawrences  had  gone  as  boys  to  a school  at 
which  there  were  no  holidays,  and  the  Punjab  officers  were,  it 
seems,  so  far  as  their  masters  could  prevent  it,  to  have  none 
either  ; at  least,  not  till  they  were  fairly  abreast  of  their  work, 
a consummation  which,  however  devoutly  to  be  wished,  seemed 
each  month  to  become  more  and  more  remote,  as  new  fields  of 
enterprise  opened  out  before  them.  It  was  expedient  that  a 
few  white  men  should  suffer,  and,  if  need  be,  die  for  the  dusky 
millions  of  the  Punjab.  On  this  principle  John  Lawrence 
acted  himself,  and  on  this  he  expected  everyone  else  who  came 
within  his  sphere,  if  he  would  keep  well  with  him,  to  act  also. 
Lord  Dalhousie,  without  making  any  definite  request  on  the 
subject,  had  mentioned  to  John  Lawrence  the  wish  of  Lord  W. 
Hay,  a near  relative  of  llis  and  an  officer  employed  under  the 
Board,  to  get  some  leave. 

If  Lord  W.  Hay  (replied  John  Lawrence)  is  left  to  our  mercies,  we 
must,  in  duty  bound,  refuse  him  leave.  We  have  agreed  not  to  recom- 
mend any  leave  unless  when  men  are  sick.  There  is  still  much  to  do, 
and  will  be  so  for  the  next  two  years.  Every  day  is  of  value,  and  the 
best  officer  cannot  work  too  hard  or  too  long  for  the  public  interest. 
We  have  a number  of  men  away  on  sick  certificate,  and  almost  every 
week  brings  in  similar  applications,  and  will,  I fear,  continue  to  do  so 
until  October.  If  the  rains  prove  a failure,  which  I much  fear  they  will, 
our  hands  will  be  full  to  overflowing.  It  will  take  all  the  metal  of  our 
Punjab  executive  to  keep  the  work  down. 

What  wonder  that,  under  such  circumstances,  the  Punjab  head 
came  to  be  a proverbial  expression  for  the  break-down  which 
came  from  over-work,  and  which  sent  so  many  of  the  Punjab 


IS49-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


321 


officers,  sorely  against  the  will  of  their  chiefs,  to  recruit  ex- 
hausted nature  for  a month  or  two  in  the  delicious  sanataria  of 
Murri  or  Chumba  or  Simla  ? 

The  very  slight  changes  of  air  or  scene  which  John  Lawrence 
allowed  himself  to  take  were  only  justified  to  his  mind  by  the 
amount  of  work  which  he  managed  to  combine  with  them,  and 
he  was  always  ready  to  stay  at  his  desk  if  he  thought  his  brother 
could  go  instead  and  do  the  locomotive  work,  which  suited  him 
better.  For  example,  it  had  been  long  since  arranged  that  John 
Lawrence  should  accompany  Lord  Dalhousie  in  a tour  in  the 
north-west  of  the  Punjab.  He  looked  forward  to  the  treat  with 
real  pleasure.  But  a passage  in  a letter  of  September  15  shows 
how  far  he  was  from  wishing  in  any  way  to  oust  or  take  pre- 
cedence of  his  brother. 

Nothing  I should  like  better  than  to  run  along  the  frontier  ; but  my 
brother  wishes  to  go  there  also,  particularly  if  we  act  against  the  Afridis; 
and  as  his  services  will  be  in  every  way  more  useful  and  carry  more 
weight  than  mine  in  public  opinion,  I will  willingly  withdraw  my  request  to 
accompany  your  Lordship  to  the  frontier.  I am  very  sorry  to  say  that  more 
of  our  officers  are  getting  ill.  Major  Lake  and  Hercules  Scott  are  both 
ailing,  and  may  both  have  to  go  home.  In  them,  George  Campbell,  and 
Cust,  we  lose  some  of  our  best  civil  officers,  with  none  to  replace  them 
of  equal  merit.  I feel  sometimes  quite  desperate  when  looking  forward. 

On  the  much-disputed  question  of  the  frontier  force,  which 
was,  at  length,  nearing  its  solution,  and  not  in  the  way  in  which 
John  Lawrence  then  advocated,  I am  induced  to  quote  one  other 
letter,  because,  though  it  travels  over  some  old  ground,  it  con- 
tains remarks  on  the  public  opinion  of  India,  which  are  as  true 
now  as  on  the  day  on  which  they  were  written,  and  because  of 
the  vivid  portraiture  it  gives,  in  very  few  words,  of  himself  and 
his  colleagues  on  the  Board. 

The  main  question  is  as  to  the  ten  Punjab  corps  being  made  over  to 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  or  left  with  the  Board  for  the  defence  of  the 
country  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Indus,  south  of  Peshawur.  While  ad- 
mitting to  the  full  the  advantages  which  are  to  be  derived  from  the  con- 
trol of  the  Punjab  corps,  and  the  defence  of  this  frontier  being  vested  in 
us,  I have  always  shrunk  from  advocating  the  measure  from  the  difficul- 
ties I felt  we  should  have  to  encounter.  No  doubt  with  a good  Brigadier, 
one  in  whom  we  had  confidence,  and  who  would  be  prepared  to  carry 
out  our  views,  these  difficulties  would  be  lessened.  Still  they  seem  to 
me  to  be  considerable.  Some  of  them  are  those  which  I have  personally 
experienced,  and  which  no  one  who  has  lived  and  mixed  with  military 
Vol.  I. — 21 


322 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


men  can  fail  to  admit.  Public  opinion  is  essentially  military  in  India. 
Military  views,  feelings,  and  interests  are  therefore  paramount.  If  mat- 
ters go  well,  the  credit  will  rest  with  the  military  ; if  they  go  wrong,  the 
blame  is  thrown  on  the  civil  power.  The  views  of  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  are  essentially  those  of  his  cloth,  perhaps  a good  deal  exaggerated, 
but  still  their  views.  There  is  no  security  that  the  officer  commanding 
in  the  field  at  any  crisis  may  not  be  utterly  incapable  ; there  is  every 
possibility  that  at  times  he  will  be  so,  but  the  effects  of  his  incapacity 
will  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  civil  administration.  This  is  in  the  nature 
of  things.  Probably,  if  a soldier,  I myself  should  join  in  the  outcry- 
India  has  produced  few  abler  or  better  men  than  Sir  William  Macnagh- 
ten.  Had  his  advice  been  followed,  the  Kabul  insurrection  would  have 
ended  very  differently.  Yet  to  this  day,  his  memory  is  maligned,  and 
he  is  considered  the  cause  of  all  the  misfortunes  which  occurred.  There 
are  a thousand  ways  in  which  the  military  can  thwart  the  civil  officers, 
which  it  would  be  difficult  to  remedy  and  unwise  to  complain  of.  I say 
this  in  no  bitterness,  for  on  the  whole  I have  been  kindly  dealt  with  ; 
but  I have  often  felt  that  my  honour  and  reputation  were  in  the  hands  of 
a querulous  old  man. 

The  frontier  is  a post  of  danger  ; it  is  therefore  one  of  honour,  and 
the  military  as  a body  will  be  ready  to  resent  its  being  entrusted  to  us. 
They  may  acquiesce  so  long  as  all  is  quiet,  but  if  anything  goes  wrong, 
the  feeling  will  be  shown.  Independently  of  these  facts,  the  constitution 
of  the  Board  is  unfavourable  to  such  a change.  We  are  told  that  in  the 
multitude  of  counsellors  there  is  safety  ; but  assuredly  there  is  not  much 
energy.  Each  man  may  take  a different  view  of  the  question,  and  be- 
tween conflicting  opinions  the  time  for  action  passes  by.  Promptitude 
and  vigour,  the  very  soul  of  military  arrangements,  will,  I fear,  be  often 
wanting.  If,  therefore,  your  Lordship  shall  think  fit  to  confide  the  de- 
fence of  the  frontier  to  the  Board,  I pray  that  one  only  of  the  members 
be  invested  with  the  duty. 

There  is  hardly  a single  subject  on  which  the  members  thoroughly  con- 
cur. If  they  agree  in  theory,  they  differ  in  the  mode  of  execution.  My 
brother’s  temperament  is  very  similar  to  my  own,  but  we  have  been  bred 
in  two  different  schools.  With  a keener  and  higher  order  of  intellect 
than  mine,  he  is  from  habit  and  ill  health  unequal  to  systematic  exer- 
tion. Mansel  is  contemplative  and  philosophic,  but  shrinks  from  action. 
I am  restless  and  impatient,  thinking  nothing  done  if  aught  is  left  un- 
done, and  chafe  at  delay.  Such  being  the  elements  which  compose  our 
Board,  I feel  averse  to  our  having  charge  of  the  frontier,  which  will  re- 
quire much  order  and  system,  joined  to  vigour  and  promptitude  of  action. 

I beg  that  your  Lordship  will  not  attribute  my  remarks  to  want  of  zeal. 
I cannot  serve  the  State  nor  your  Lordship  more  truly  than  by  frankly 
stating  my  views.  If  we  are  to  have  the  frontier,  I suggest  it  be  en- 
trusted to  my  brother.  I believe  he  would  like  the  charge,  and,  judging 
of  him  by  myself,  I should  say  he  would  prefer  the  whole  responsibility 
to  sharing  it  with  his  colleagues. 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


323 


In  the  spring  of  this  year  (1850)  Henry  Lawrence  had  set  out 
on  a prolonged  visit  to  Kashmere.  He  was  accompanied  dur- 
ing a part  of  it  bv  his  wife  and  his  daughter  Honoria  (now  Mrs. 
Henry  Hart),  then  an  infant  only  six  weeks  old.  Dr.  Hatha- 
way, who  had  been  his  Private  Secretary,  and  was  now  surgeon 
to  the  civil  station  at  Lahore,  and  Hodson,  afterwards  of  Hod- 
son’s  horse,  were  also  members  of  the  party. 

There  were  elements  of  romantic  interest  about  the  journey 
which  exactly  suited  Henry  Lawrence.  The  surpassing  beauty 
of  the  scenery  of  Kashmere  is  now  well  known.  But  at  that 
time  hardly  any  Europeans  had  set  foot  in  the  country.  It  was 
a native  state  which  had  been  saved  from  annexation,  in  part  at 
least,  by  Henry  Lawrence’s  own  chivalrous  exertions,  and  upon 
its  throne  sat  the  astute  Golab  Sing,  whose  misdeeds  Henry 
Lawrence,  as  his  patron,  had  been  driven  by  a somewhat  cruel 
destiny,  and  with  a strange  conflict  of  feelings,  now  to  condemn 
and  now  again  to  extenuate  and  defend.  The  tour  was  pro- 
longed farther  northward  still  to  Iskardo  and  Ladak,  and  the 
elements  of  romance  seemed  to  multiply  as  the  travellers 
advanced  farther  and  farther  into  the  region  of  the  unknown. 
‘ Five  times  over,’  as  Henry  Lawrence  writes  exultingly  to  his 
brother  George,  he  had  been  ‘above  14,000  feet  high  ;’  he  had 
given  a dinner  to  some  three  hundred  natives  of  those  remote 
latitudes  who  traded  with  Yarkand — probably  the  most  original 
and  picturesque  as  well  as  the  most  costly  and  most  difficult  en- 
tertainment which  even  he,  in  his  boundless  hospitality,  had 
ever  given — and  he  was  looking  forward  to  one  on  a still  larger 
scale,  which  he  was  about  to  give  to  a mixed  party  of  merchants 
and  soldiers  at  Iskardo. 

The  adventurous  and  daring  as  well  as  the  unscrupulous 
character  of  Hodson  came  out  at  every  step  of  the  journey.  On 
one  occasion  he  climbed,  at  the  imminent  peril  of  his  life,  a 
snowy  peak  resembling  that  of  the  Matterhorn,  on  which,  as 
Henry  Lawrence  afterwards  remarked,  ‘ none  but  a Hodson  or 
an  eagle  would  have  thought  of  setting  foot.’  • His  fate  reserved 
him  for  many  a deed  of  higher  daring  still,  but  for  a less  happy 
end. 

Another  unpleasant  element  in  the  expedition  was  the  cor- 
respondence with  Lord  Dalhousie  which  had  preceded  it. 
Henry  had  applied  for  leave  of  absence  during  the  rainy 
season,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  get  the  better  of  his  attacks 
of  fever,  which  latterly  had  been  more  than  usually  severe ; 


324 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


and  Lord  DalhOusie  had  demurred  to  the  proposal  on  the 
ground  that  his  habitual  absence  from  Lahore  for  nearly  half 
the  year  was  incompatible  with  his  office  and  unfair  to  his  col- 
leagues, who  would  not  be  able  to  stir  from  the  capital  till  he 
returned.  ‘ Of  Mr.  Mansel’s  habits  I know  nothing,  but  it  is 
impossible  that,  after  the  active  movements  of  your  brother’s 
life  for  so  many  years,  imprisonment  in  one  place  can  be  other- 
wise than  bad  for  him.  Previous  to  your  departure,  therefore, 
before  the  rains,  I would  request  that  he  would  come  up  to 
Simla  and  meet  me  there.’  Lord  Dalhousie's  consent  was  given 
grudgingly,  and  its  tone  may  well  have  been  resented  by  a man 
who  was  so  unsparing  of  himself  as  Henry  Lawrence.  But  his 
forebodings  as  to  the  danger  to  John  Lawrence’s  health  proved 
too  true.  The  strain  of  unintermittent  work  for  nearly  ten 
years  had  begun  to  tell  even  on  John  Lawrence’s  iron  constitu- 
tion. The  rains,  which  Henry  had  wished  to  avoid,  ceased 
early,  and  then  a terribly  unhealthy  season  set  in.  The  old 
cantonments  at  Anarkulli  were  devastated  by  disease,  and  Sir 
Charles  Napier’s  new  ones  at  Mean  Meer  fared  even  worse. 
At  Wuzeerabad,  Inglis  declared  that  ‘ his  whole  office  was  pros- 
trate,’ and  the  natives  throughout  the  Punjab  suffered  more 
even  than  the  Europeans. 

John  Lawrence  wras  one  of  the  last  to  succumb.  He  had 
worked  hard  the  whole  summer  through,  and  now,  early  in 
October,  his  turn  came.  It  was  a sharp  attack  of  remittent 
fever.  The  symptoms  rapidly  developed  ; intense  pain  in  the 
head  and  very  high  fever,  followed  by  sickness  and  delirium. 
Those  about  him  began  to  fear  the  worst,  but  a cold  douche 
extemporised  by  Dr.  Hathaway  had  a magical  effect.  The 
fever  and  delirium  disappeared  almost  instantaneously.  He 
dropped  off  into  a quiet  sleep,  and  woke  up  out  of  danger.  As 
is  often  the  case  with  very  strong  men  when  attacked  by  illness, 
his  strength  had  gone  all  at  once,  and  it  now  returned  almost 
as  rapidly  ; and  by  the  16th  of  the  month,  the  day  originally 
fixed,  he  was  able  to  start  for  his  long-projected  tour  with  the 
Governor-General.  Lord  Dalhousie  had  peremptorily  overruled 
his  generous  wish  that  his  brother  should  go  in  his  stead.  ‘ I 
shall  be  delighted,’  he  wrote  on  September  16,  ‘to  see  you  at 
Roopore,  but  I want  also  to  have  you  with  me  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  march.  If  your  brother  returns  in  October,  he  can 
accompany  me  to  meet  Golab  at  Wuzeerabad.  After  that  he 
must  take  his  turn  at  Lahore.  I wish  for  your  presence  with 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


325 


me.’  Lord  Dalhousie's  wish  was  equivalent  to  a command,  and 
for  the  next  six  months,  except  during  short  intervals,  when  he 
ran  down  to  Lahore,  John  Lawrence  was  to  be  found  in  the  lo- 
comotive camp  of  the  Governor-General,  who  had  come  with 
the  intention  of  seeing  as  much  of  the  north  and  north-west  of 
the  Punjab  as  he  possibly  could. 

What  Lord  Dalhousie  thought  of  John  Lawrence's  services 
to  the  State,  and  what  he  felt  towards  him  personally,  is  clear 
from  the  following  letter,  written  on  October  21 — soon,  that  is, 
after  he  heard  of  his  sudden  and  dangerous  illness  : — 

I have  not  plagued  you  with  any  letter  since  I heard  of  your  illness. 
I need  not  say  how  deeply  and  truly  I grieved  to  learn  the  severe  attack 
you  have  suffered,  and  how  anxious  I shall  be  to  learn  again  that  you 
are  improving  during  your  march,  and  that  you  are  not  foolishly  imped- 
ing your  recovery  by  again  returning  to  work.  1 am  terrified  at  the 
thought  of  your  being  compelled  to  give  up  work  and  go  home  for  a time, 
and  I plead  with  you  to  spare  yourself  for  a time  as  earnestly  as  I would 
plead  to  save  my  own  right  hand.  Two  of  you  have  been  working  hard 
enough,  Heaven  knows,  for  the  third ; let  the  other  two  now  take  their 
turn  of  working  for  you.  Keep  enough  work  in  your  hands  to  employ 
you,  but  don’t  take  so  much  as  to  burden  you. 

It  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Governor-General, 
when  he  realised  the  full  danger  to  which  his  lieutenant  had 
been  exposed,  insisted  that  he  should  spend  the  next  hot  sea- 
son, not  in  the  fever-stricken  furnace  of  Lahore,  but  amidst  the 
cool  breezes  of  Simla.  And  it  may  also  be  added,  by  way  of 
anticipation,  that  it  was  the  readiness  of  resource  shown  by  Dr. 
Hathaway  at  the  critical  moment,  as  well  as  his  aptitude  for 
work,  tested  during  a long  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  him 
in  India,  which,  fourteen  years  later,  served  to  recommend  him 
for  the  post  of  Private  Secretary  to  the  man  who  had  then  just 
been  called,  by  universal  acclamation,  to  the  highest  post  in  the 
Indian  Empire,  that  of  Viceroy  and  Governor-General. 

John  Lawrence  left  Lahore  with  his  wife,  as  I have  men- 
tioned, on  October  16,  just  after  his  brother’s  return.  Taking 
Umritsur  and  Jullundur  on  his  way,  and  managing  to  do  an 
infinity  of  work  at  each  place,  he  joined  the  Governor-General, 
about  the  beginning  of  November,  at  Roopore,  a small  place 
on  the  Sutlej.  The  Governor-General’s  camp  was  a very  large 
one.  Besides  his  own  retinue,  it  was  attended  by  the  principal 
officers  of  the  district  in  which  from  time  to  time  it  happened 


326 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


to  be,  and  John  Lawrence  thus  found  ample  opportunities  for 
consultation,  alike  with  his  chief  and  with  his  subordinates,  on 
the  pressing  questions  of  the  hour,  as  well  as  on  the  future 
prospects  of  the  country.  I am  unable  to  find  in  the  papers 
entrusted  to  me  any  details  of  the  places  visited  or  of  the  work 
done  during  the  next  six  months.  There  is  a total  absence  of 
letters  from  October,  1850,  to  November,  1851  ; and  it  is  natural 
that  it  should  be  so.  Being  so  much  with  the  Governor-Gener- 
al John  Lawrence  had  no  need  to  write  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  or 
Lord  Dalhousie  to  him.  Henry  Lawrence  was  at  Lahore,  and 
on  him,  therefore,  naturally  devolved  the  laborious  correspond- 
ence— which  till  now  had  fallen  chiefly  on  his  brother — with 
the  Commissioners,  Deputy-Commissioners,  and  Assistant- 
Commissioners,  who  were  coming  and  going  hither  and  thither 
to  their  various  stations,  like  the  figures  in  a transformation 
scene,  or  the  pieces  of  glass  in  a kaleidoscope.  And  once 
more,  it  should  be  remarked  that  John  Lawrence  had  no  private 
secretary,  and  that  the  copying  of  the  letters  to  which  this  bio- 
graphy will,  for  some  years  to  come,  owe  so  much,  was  chiefly 
the  work  of  his  wife,  who  was  only  with  him  at  intervals  dur- 
ing this  particular  tour. 

The  arrangements  for  the  Governor-General’s  march  had 
formed  the  subject  of  frequent  communication  between  John 
Lawrence  and  Lord  Dalhousie  for  months  past  ; and  from  their 
letters  I gather  that  the  programme  consisted  of  a leisurely 
progress  through  the  northern  districts  of  the  Punjab  ; of  a 
prolonged  stay  at  Lahore,  ‘ with  more  opportunities,’  remarks 
Lord  Dalhousie,  evidently  much  to  his  satisfaction,  ‘for  busi- 
ness and  less  occasion  for  ceremonies  than  in  the  preceding 
year  of  visits  to  Wuzeerabad  and  Rawul  Pindi  ; of  a march 
thence  by  a newly  constructed  and  difficult  road  to  Kalabagh 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Indus,  where  the  Governor-General  in- 
tended, if  possible,  to  alter  forthe  better  the  arrangements  made 
by  the  Board  for  the  salt-duties,  ‘ the  one  slip,’  according  to 
him,  ‘which  they  had  made  at  all ;’  finally,  of  a trip  down  the 
Indus  in  a steamboat  to  Dera  Ismael  Khan,  where  he  wished  to 
hold  a Durbar  of  the  hill  chiefs  of  the  Derajat.  His  plan  was 
to  return  thence,  if  the  disposition  of  the  hill  tribes  allowed  it, 
through  the  Derajat  to  Kohat  and  Peshawur ; thence  to  travel 
over  the  line  marked  out  for  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  between 
it  and  Attock  ; and,  last  of  all,  to  reach  Simla  by  a circuitous 
route  through  Iluzara  and  Kashmere.  This  was  an  extensive 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


327 


programme,  and  the  less  ambitious  parts  of  it  appear  to  have 
been  carried  out.  But  the  delicate  and  difficult  passage  through 
Kashmere  was  given  up,  owing  to  the  opposition  offered  to  it 
by  the  prudence  of  the  Lawrence  brothers.  John  Lawrence 
returned  to  Lahore  for  Christmas,  while  the  Governor-General 
remained  to  finish  his  tour  beyond  the  Indus. 

The  only  interruption  to  the  routine  work  of  the  following 
spring  (1851)  to  which  reference  need  be  made  here,  was  the 
visit  of  John  Lawrence  to  Peshawur,  where  he  spent  a busy 
fortnight  in  examining  the  official  records  and  criminal  returns  ; 
in  inspecting  the  fort,  the  jail,  the  cantonments,  and  the  city  ; 
in  making  excursions  with  the  Governor-General  to  Barra  and 
Jumrood  ; and  in  conversing  freely,  as  his  manner  was,  with 
people  of  every  grade  and  of  all  kinds  of  views.  He  found  that 
that  important  position  was  not  then — probably  it  is  not  even 
now — in  an  altogether  satisfactory  condition.  The  valley  was 
held  by  a garrison  of  10,000  Regulars  ; a force  which  it  has 
never  yet,  I believe,  been  found  practicable  seriously  to  reduce. 
The  physical  characteristics  of  the  country,  intersected  as  it  is 
by  two  large  rivers  and  numerous  hill-torrents,  by  deep  ravines 
and  rugged  ridges,  and  surrounded  on  every  side  by  mountains 
which  afford  a ready  refuge  to  miscreants  of  all  descriptions, 
marked  it  out  as  a den  of  murderers  and  marauders,  which  it 
wras  almost  equally  difficult  for  us  to  hold  or  to  abandon.  The 
Sikhs,  who  had  preceded  us  in  the  occupation  of  the  place  and 
had  called  themselves,  for  a brief  period,  its  masters,  had  never 
held  a yard  of  country  beyond  the  range  of  their  military  posts, 
and  had  never  raised  a rupee  from  either  the  highlanders  or  the 
lowlanders  of  the  surrounding  districts,  except  at  the  point  of 
the  sword.  It  was  hardly  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  if,  in 
spite  of  the  moderation  and  justice  of  our  rule,  in  spite  of  duties 
swept  away,  and  lightened  land-tax,  in  spite  of  the  careful 
maintenance,  in  this  part  of  our  dominions  at  least,  of  the  jag- 
heers  of  the  village  or  district  chiefs,  so  poor,  so  predatory,  and 
so  warlike  a people  had  not  been  weaned  from  their  immemorial 
habits.  There  were  still  the  eternal  mountains,  which  formed 
an  all  but  impenetrable  fastness  whence  the  inhabitants  could 
sallv  forth  on  the  less  warlike  people  of  the  plains,  and  which 
offered,  in  their  turn,  an  equally  safe  retreat  to  any  lowlander 
who,  laden  with  the  plunder,  or  red-handed  with  the  blood,  of  the 
hated  Feringhis,  might  wish  to  claim  amongst  them  the  sacred 
right  of  asylum.  Accustomed  as  the  natives  were  to  redress 


328 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


their  own  wrongs,  and  utterly  regardless  of  human  life,  we  had 
found  it  impossible  to  disarm  any  portion  of  them.  And  thus 
the  reign  of  violence,  if  it  was  ever  to  give  way  at  all  to  the 
reign  of  law,  could  be  expected  to  do  so  only  by  very  slow  de- 
grees. Fifty-one  cases  of  murder  or  dangerous  wounding  had 
taken  place,  as  John  Lawrence  found,  in  the  two  months  and 
a-half  which  preceded  his  arrival,  and  it  was  under  such  cir- 
cumstances that  he  drew  up  two  elaborate  documents  on  the  de- 
fence and  organisation  of  the  Peshawur  district,  the  suggestions 
of  which  have  been  acted  upon  ever  since,  and  have  gradually 
succeeded  in  weaning — as  far  as  in  a generation  or  two  they 
could  be  expected  to  do  so — the  wild  marauders  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood towards  a more  peaceful  life.  The  levelling  of  the 
broken  ground  around  the  cantonments,  so  as  to  sweep  away 
the  lurking-place  of  the  robber  or  the  assassin  ; a vigorous  sys- 
tem of  police  patrols  both  by  night  and  day  ; a chain  of  forti- 
fied posts  in  the  interior  as  well  as  along  the  frontier  of  the 
country  ; the  strict  limitations  imposed  on  the  wandering  pro- 
pensities of  our  officers  and  soldiers  ; the  taking  away  of  their 
arms  from  merchants  from  the  hills  when  they  reached  our 
frontier  stations,  of  course  to  be  given  back  to  them  on  their 
return  ; the  strict  responsibility  of  heads  of  villages  for  crimes 
committed  within  them  ; the  occupation  of  Jumrood  by  Irregu- 
lars as  the  advanced  picquet  of  the  Peshawur  force  ; — these 
were  some  of  the  precautions  first  suggested  by  John  Lawrence, 
and  which  have  ever  since  been  more  or  less  rigorously  observed. 

In  April,  John  Lawrence  followed  his  wife  and  family  to 
Simla,  and  here  he  and  they  had  the  ineffable  happiness — 
hardly,  I suppose,  to  be  understood  by  anyone  who  has  not 
experienced  it  himself,  or  who  has  not  suffered  from  the  Indian 
sun  as  John  Lawrence  had  always  done — of  spending  the  first 
of  some  twenty  summers  which  had  passed  since  he  came  to 
India  in  the  hills.  The  long  walk,  the  pleasant  society,  the 
lovely  climate  of  that  earthly  paradise,  the  kindness  of  Lord 
and  Lady  Dalhousie,  the  hard  work  done  under  conditions 
which  seemed  to  make  it  no  work  at  all,  altogether  went  to  form 
an  oasis  in  his  Indian  life,  on  which  she  who  enjoyed  and 
shared  it  with  him  can  still,  after  thirty  years  have  come  and 
gone,  look  back  with  melancholy  delight.  But  even  here  he 
was  not  to  escape  altogether  from  the  effects  of  the  deadly  cli- 
mate of  Lahore.  In  September  he  again  broke  down  with  a 
renewed  attack  of  the  fever  of  the  preceding  year,  and  the  four 


IS49-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


329 


doctors  who  attended  him— Lord  Dalhousie’s  physician  among 
them — agreed  that  nothing  but  a return  to  England  would  re- 
store him  to  health.  ‘ If  I cannot  go  to  India  and  live  there, 
I will  go  and  die  there,’  he  had  said  ten  years  before,  but  as  a 
newly  married  man  with  no  definite  employment  in  view,  when 
the  doctors  warned  him  not  again  to  attempt  the  Indian  climate. 
And  it  was  not  likely  now,  when  the  interests  of  a vast  province 
in  so  large  a measure  depended  on  him,  that  he  would  think 
differently.  Nothing  should  induce  him,  he  said,  to  go  home 
till  he  had  done  the  work  which  he  had  then  in  hand  ; and, 
when  once  the  fever  had  abated,  he  rallied  so  quickly  that  all 
thought  of  his  return  was  given  up  by  his  doctors  and  his 
wife. 

Lord  Dalhousie,  however,  was  not  so  easily  satisfied,  and,  in 
his  anxiety  to  spare  one  whose  services  he  valued  ‘ as  he  did 
his  own  right  hand,’  he  wrote  to  the  Directors  of  the  East  India 
Company,  asking  them  to  allow  John  Lawrence  to  go  home  on 
exceptionally  favourable  terms.  The  request  was  refused  on 
public  grounds,  but  the  refusal  was  accompanied  by  expressions 
which  showed  a high  appreciation  of  John  Lawrence’s  services. 
I insert  here  a few  lines  from  one  of  his  letters  on  the  subject 
to  Lord  Dalhousie,  chiefly  because  of  the  light  it  throws  on 
what  were  then  his  plans  for  the  future. 

I have  made  up  my  mind  not  to  go  home.  It  would,  I think,  be  sui- 
cidal in  me,  at  my  age  and  with  the  claims  which  my  children  have  on 
me,  to  do  so.  My  health  is  very  uncertain.  I do  not  think  that  I have 
more  than  three  or  four  years  of  good  honest  work  left  in  me.  In  May, 
1855,  I shall  have  served  my  time,  and  be  entitled  to  my  annuity,  and  by 
that  time  I shall  have  saved  a sufficiency  for  my  own  moderate  wants 
and  to  bring  up  my  children.  Without  making  up  my  mind  absolutely 
to  retire  at  that  period,  I wish  to  be  in  a position  to  be  able  to  do  so.  If 
I go  home  now  without  pay,  I shall  come  back  to  this  country  without 
the  slightest  chance  of  being  able  to  retire  as  I propose,  for  I shall  have 
to  spend  in  my  trip  the  best  part  of  my  savings.  I am  infinitely  obliged 
for  the  kindness  and  consideration  which  led  your  Lordship  to  recom- 
mend the  indulgence,  and  am  gratified  with  the  flattering  manner  in 
which  it  has  been  negatived. 

It  is  difficult,  now  that  the  writer’s  long  and  deedful  life  is 
over,  to  read  without  something  akin  to  emotion  the  simple 
wishes  and  the  humble  prognostications  of  this  letter ; and  it 
is  more  difficult  still,  even  at  the  risk  of  anticipating  what 
might,  perhaps,  come  more  fitly  at  the  close  of  this  biography, 


330 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


not  to  take  a rapid  glance  forward  at  the  amount  of  work 
which  was  really  in  store  for  him  at  the  time  when  he  wrote. 
The  man  who  thought  he  had  1 not  more  than  three  or  four 
years  of  good  honest  work  left  in  him,’  and  could  not  go  to  Eng- 
land to  recruit  his  health  without  spending  the  best  part  of  his 
savings  in  the  process,  was  to  work  on  in  the  Punjab  with  in- 
creased responsibility  and  power,  not  merely  for  three  or  four, 
but  for  seven  years,  doing  each  day  as  much  as  most  men  do  in 
a dozen  days,  and,  during  the  last  two  years,  facing  an  amount 
of  anxiety,  of  difficulty,  and  of  danger  which,  by  itself,  would 
have  been  enough  to  make  or  mar  any  lesser  man.  When  he 
returned  home  after  the  Mutiny,  broken  down  in  health,  he  was 
to  recruit  himself,  not  by  rest,  but  by  serving  for  four  years  in 
the  Indian  Council,  bringing  his  vast  experience  and  his  sound 
judgment  to  bear  on  the  difficult  questions  which  had  been 
raised  by  the  transference  of  India  from  the  Company  to  the 
Crown.  At  the  end  of  that  period  of  comparative  repose,  he 
was  to  return  to  India  as  Viceroy  and  Governor-General,  and, 
for  the  full  period  of  five  years,  was  to  work  as  hard  and  suc- 
cessfully as  any  Governor-General  has  ever  worked.  When  he 
returned  to  England  again,  it  was  to  descend  at  once  from 
the  most  magnificent  of  Viceroyalties  to  the  dull  and  thank- 
less drudgery  of  the  London  School  Board  ; and  that,  not  be- 
cause he  had  any  special  knowledge  or  natural  bent  for  the 
subject  of  popular  education,  but  because  he  felt  there  was 
good  work  and  hard  work  to  be  done  upon  it.  And  then,  once 
more,  when  his  health  had  finally  broken  down,  when  his  sight 
was  nearly  gone,  and  when  he  seemed  to  have  set  his  face 
towards  the  grave,  he  was  to  rouse  himself  again  at  the 
trumpet-call  of  duty,  and,  regardless  of  obloquy  and  of  miscon- 
ception of  every  kind,  was  to  work  hard  to  the  very  end  against 
a policy  which  he  thought  to  be  unjust,  and  to  be  fraught  with 
danger  and  disaster  to  the  best  interests  of  England  and  of 
India.  If  any  life  was  ever  dignified  from  first  to  last  with  that 
kind  of  dignity  which  nothing  but  labour — honest,  unsparing, 
unselfish  labour — can  give,  that  life  was  John  Lawrence’s. 

By  November  Lawrence  returned  to  Lahore,  visiting  all  the 
civil  stations  on  the  way,  and  bringing  with  him  an  infant  son 
— Edward  Hayes — who  had  been  born  in  June  at  Simla.  It 
was  a lovely  child,  which  had  seemed  from  its  very  birth  to  call 
forth  from  beneath  the  rugged  exterior  of  his  father  that  vein 
of  tenderness  which  those  who  knew  him  well  knew  was  always 


i S49-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


331 


there.  A child,  particularly  a young  one,  seemed  often  able — 
as  a notable  incident  which  I shall  relate  at  a subsequent  period 
of  his  life  will  show — to  calm  John  Lawrence  when  he  was  most 
ruffled,  and  to  cheer  him  when  he  was  most  wearied  with  the 
anxieties  and  the  vexations  of  his  daily  work.  This  babe  had 
been  delicate  from  its  birth — so  delicate,  that  its  mother  feared 
now  to  expose  it  to  the  rough  camp  life  which  formed  a princi- 
pal part  of  the  winter’s  work  in  the  Punjab.  Accordingly,  while 
the  father  was  roaming  about  his  province  in  tents,  the  mother 
stayed  at  home  to  tend  it. 

But,  howsoe’er  it  was, 

After  a lingering,  ere  she  was  aware, 

Like  a caged  bird  escaping  suddenly, 

The  little  innocent  soul  flitted  away. 

It  was  a crushing  sorrow,  and  not  to  the  mother  alone.  It 
was  the  first  time  that  death  had  come  into  the  Lawrence  fam- 
ily. The  strong  man  was  broken  down  ; and  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  those  that  did  not  know  him  well — but  only  to  those — 
he  was  seen  weeping  like  a child,  as  he  followed  the  body  to 
the  grave.  It  was  not  often  that  John  Lawrence  was  seen  to 
shed  tears  ; and  I have  thought  it  worth  while  in  the  course  of 
this  biography  to  specify  the  two  or  three  occasions  when  he  is 
known  to  have  done  so.  But  his  tears  were  only  the  outward 
and  intermittent  signs  of  the  perennial  spring  of  tenderness 
which  lay  below  ; of  a tenderness  which  was,  perhaps,  more 
real  because  it  made  so  little  show,  and  certainly  gave  more 
encouragement  and  more  support  to  those  on  whom  it  was 
habitually  lavished,  because  it  was  felt  to  be  the  tenderness,  not 
of  a weakling,  but  of  a strong,  rough-hewn  man. 

It  was  the  first  death.  But  it  was  not  the  first  break  in  the 
family.  For  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  of  annexation  (1849), 
the  inevitable  severance,  bitter  almost  as  death,  to  which  all 
Indian  families  must  look  forward,  and  that,  too,  at  the  time  of 
life  when  the  child  most  needs  the  parent,  and  the  parent  most 
misses  the  child,  had  taken  place.  The  two  eldest  daughters 
had  been  sent  off  to  England,  under  somewhat  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances. It  happened  that  Herbert  Edwardes  and  John 
Nicholson  were  about  to  leave  on  furlough,  and  they  volun- 
teered to  undertake  a task,  which  not  even  such  friends  as  the 
Lawrences  would  have  ever  thought  of  proposing  to  them — the 
trouble  and  responsibility  of  conveying  the  little  girls  to  Eng- 


332 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


land.  ‘It  was  considered,’  says  Lady  Lawrence,  ‘somewhat 
strange  to  send  two  little  girls  away  with  only  two  young  men 
as  their  escort,  but  they  were  dear  and  trusted  friends  ; and 
right  nobly  they  fulfilled  their  trust,  not  minding  the  trouble 
and  anxiety  of  little  children,  but  tenderly  caring  for  them  all 
the  way.’  John  Lawrence  conveyed  them  to  Ferozepore,  and 
there  handed  them  over,  with  their  ayah,  to  their  kind  escort, 
who  conveyed  them  down  the  Indus  to  Bombay,  and  thence 
safely  to  England.  And,  assuredly,  when  we  consider  what 
young  unmarried  officers  usually  are  like,  and  how  utterly  in- 
capable they  would  be,  even  if  they  had  the  will,  of  undertaking 
such  a charge,  we  shall  be  disposed  to  regard  this  as  not  the 
least  characteristic,  or  the  least  lovable,  passage  in  the  lives  of 
the  young  hero  of  Mooltan,  or  of  the  afterwards  still  more  dis- 
tinguished hero  of  Delhi. 

During  John  Lawrence’s  sojourn  at  Simla  in  1850,  an  im- 
portant change  had  taken  place  in  the  personnel  of  the  Board. 
I have  already  endeavoured  to  indicate  the  general  characteris- 
tics of  the  third  member  of  the  triumvirate,  and  have  pointed 
out  how  valuable,  judging  from  an  outsider’s  point  of  view, 
must  have  been  the  makeweight  which  Mansel’s  evenly  bal- 
anced and  philosophic  temperament  offered  to  the  more  drastic 
and  impetuous  spirits  which,  for  the  time  being,  were  linked  to 
his.  Both  brothers,  so  far  as  I can  make  out,  appreciated 
highly  his  intellectual  gifts,  and  regarded  him  with  the  most 
friendly  feelings.  But  both  looked  upon  him,  also,  as  a drag 
upon  the  coach.  They  were  always,  or  nearly  always,  for  ac- 
tion ; he  was  always,  or  nearly  always,  for  talking  about  it.  In 
every  question  which  was  brought  before  him  he  saw,  like 
other  men  of  his  turn  of  mind,  at  least  three  possible  courses  ; 
and  the  tertium.  quid  on  which  he  seemed  inclined  to  settle, 
rather  than  ever  actually  did  settle  down  at  last,  was  generally 
one  which  did  not  suit  precisely  the  views  of  either  of  his  col- 
leagues. When,  as  often  happened,  Henry  Lawrence  had  one 
plan  for  the  solution  of  a difficult  problem,  and  John  another, 
and  they  were  both  brought  to  Mansel  for  his  deciding  voice, 
he  ‘ cushioned  ’ both  of  them  ; that  is  to  say,  he  put  them  into 
his  pocket,  and  the  question  was  shelved  sine  die.  lie  would 
sometimes,  as  I have  been  told  by  an  eye-witness,  walk  for  an 
hour  or  two  up  and  down  the  verandah  in  front  of  the  Resi- 
dency, arguing  seriously  against  some  project  which  Henry 
was  pressing  upon  him  with  characteristic  earnestness.  At  the 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


333 


end  of  the  discussion  he  would  say  quietly,  ‘ Well,  though  I 
have  been  arguing  thus  with  you,  I have  not  been  speaking  my 
own  views  ; 1 have  only  been  showing  you  what  might  be  said 
by  John  against  your  project;’  and  he  would  often  do  the 
same  with  John.  This  method  of  procedure  was  not  exactly 
suited  to  the  proclivities  of  either  brother.  John  Lawrence 
was  fond  enough  of  discussion,  provided  it  were  a preliminary 
to  action,  but  Mansel’s  talk  he  knew  well  was  apt  to  end  in 
nothing  else  ; and  Henry,  who  was  of  a hotter  temperament, 
and  much  more  intolerant  of  opposition,  in  the  vexation  of  the 
moment  would  sometimes  regard  Mansel’s  disputations  as  not 
only  injurious,  but  insulting.  Neither  of  the  brothers,  it  will 
be  seen,  would  have  altogether  approved  of  the  Socratic  method 
of  inquiry,  and  both  would,  at  times,  have  been  disposed  to 
elbow  that  impracticable  philosopher  out  of  their  way,  as  an 
impediment  to  energetic  and  immediate  action.  When,  there- 
fore, the  Residency  at  Nagpore  fell  vacant  in  November,  1850, 
a post  for  which  both  brothers  thought  Mansel  better  suited, 
they  agreed  in  asking  Lord  Dalhousie  to  send  him  thither.  Lord 
Dalhousie  assented,  and  Mansel  took  the  appointment  with 
probably  not  a little  feeling  of  relief. 

Indeed,  the  third  place  in  the  Board  can  have  been  no  bed 
of  roses  to  its  occupant,  whoever  he  might  be.  Henry  Lawrence 
himself,  speaking  from  his  own  experience,  called  it  a bed  of 
thorns,  and,  by  a strange  coincidence,  there  stepped  into  it  the 
man  who  had  been  a friend  of  the  Lawrence  family  from  his 
earliest  boyhood,  had  been  at  Foyle  College  with  both  Henry 
and  John  LaAvrence,  and  with  John  at  Wraxhall  also ; had 
known  the  wives  of  both  while  they  were  still  young  girls  living 
in  his  own  neighbourhood  amidst  the  wilds  of  Donegal  ; had 
kept  up  his  affectionate  interest  in  them  and  in  their  husbands 
while  he  was  gradually  rising  from  one  post  of  duty  to  another 
with  a rapidly  increasing  reputation  in  the  North-West;  had 
been,  on  Henry  Lawrence’s  recommendation,  summoned  to 
Lahore  Avhen  the  annexation  of  the  Punjab  took  place,  and  had 
noAAr,  during  the  last  year  and  a-half,  as  the  Commissioner  of 
the  most  central  and  most  important  district  of  the  annexed 
province,  been  brought  into  close  official  connection  with  both 
him  and  John.  He  AA’as  thus  marked  out  by  his  antecedents, 
by  his  actual  position,  and  by  his  promise  for  the  future,  to  be 
their  colleague  on  the  Board  ; and  so  he  stepped,  as  of  natural 
right,  into  the  vacant  seat. 


334 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1 849-52 


Attached  by  ties  of  enthusiastic  admiration  and  love  to  Henry 
Lawrence,  and  by  strong  affection  as  well  as  by  general  apti- 
tudes, by  official  training  and  by  views  of  State  policy,  to  John, 
he  seemed  pre-eminently  the  man  to  get  on  well  with  both,  to 
pour  oil  upon  the  troubled  waves,  and,  if  he  could  not  alto- 
gether remove,  at  least  to  lessen,  the  rubs  and  annoyances,  the 
heart-burnings  and  the  misconceptions,  which,  if  they  had  hither- 
to worked  admirably  for  the  State,  had  not  worked  equally  well 
for  the  peace  of  mind  of  those  who  held  the  reins  of  power. 
With  an  appetite  for  work  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  Lawrences  themselves,  and  perhaps  an  even  greater  facility 
for  getting  through  it  ; with  a readiness  of  resource  which  never 
failed  ; with  an  equanimity  which  was  depicted  even  on  his 
countenance  and  could  never  be  ruffled  ; and  with  a cool  cour- 
age which  never  allowed  him  to  doubt  that  things,  even  when 
they  looked  most  desperate,  would  somehow  come  right  at  last, 
and  forced  those  who  were  of  a less  sanguine  temperament  to 
share  his  confidence, — he  seemed  marked  out  for  the  place  he 
was  to  fill,  even  if  the  profound  peace  which  then  reigned  in  the 
Punjab  should  be  succeeded  by  a time  of  trouble.  No  one  then 
foresaw — it  was  impossible  that  they  could  have  foreseen — the 
storm  which,  some  years  afterwards,  was  to  burst  over  India  ; 
but  even  if  it  had  been  foreseen,  and  its  exact  course  predicted, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  any  man  could  have  been  found  in  the 
whole  of  the  country  so  admirably  adapted  to  fill  the  precise 
niche  which  he  did  fill  when  the  outbreak  came.  If  there  is  any 
one  act  in  the  long  roll  of  the  brilliant  achievements  of  the 
lieutenants  of  John  Lawrence  during  the  Mutiny  which  maybe 
singled  out  from  the  rest  as  having  been  done  exactly  at  the 
time,  at  the  place,  and  in  the  manner  in  which  it  ought  to  have 
been  done — as  having  been  planned  with  caution  as  well  as  cour- 
age, and  carried  out  with  triumphant  success,  and  so,  as  having 
given,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  struggle,  an  omen  of  its 
ultimate  result — that  act  was  the  disarmament  of  the  sepoys  at 
Lahore  on  the  morning  of  May  13,  1857  ; and  the  man  to  whom, 
by  universal  consent  among  all  the  authorities  at  Lahore  who 
co-operated  so  well  towards  it,  it  was  pre-eminently  due  was 
Robert  Montgomery. 

It  is  difficult,  as  one  thinks  of  the  three  men  thus  brought, 
after  such  widely  different,  but  such  laborious  and  such  uphill 
lives,  to  sit  together  at  the  same  Council  Board,  not  to  let  the 
imagination  leap  back  again  and  again  to  the  primitive  country 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


335 


school,  with  its  rough  amusements,  its  meagre  education,  and 
its  spirit-stirring  associations,  which  I have  attempted  to  de- 
scribe in  the  first  chapter  of  this  biography.  And  I am  fortun- 
ately able  here  to  relate  an  anecdote  which  will,  I think,  not 
allow  anyone  who  reads  it,  ever  afterwards  to  forget  that  the 
triumvirate  of  Lahore  had  also  been  a triumvirate  at  Foyle  Col- 
lege, or  that  the  two  great  brothers  who  could  not  agree  in 
some  matters  of  public  policy  were  at  least  agreed  in  what  is 
more  important — in  common  memories  and  common  affection, 
in  gratitude  for  services,  however  humble  and  however  long 
gone  by,  and  in  a generosity  which,  in  the  case  of  the  elder 
brother,  was  limited  only  by  all  that  his  purse  contained  ; in 
the  case  of  the  younger,  only  by  a sense  of  the  rival  claims 
which  other  objects  might  have  upon  it.  I owe  the  anecdote, 
in  the  first  instance,  to  Dr.  Charles  Hathaway,  the  one  eye-wit- 
ness on  the  occasion.  But  I may  add  that  its  accuracy  is  also 
vouched  for  by  the  one  survivor  of  the  triumvirate,  Sir  Robert 
Montgomery,  who,  at  this  distance  of  time,  had  nearly  forgotten 
the  circumstances,  but  to  whom,  when  once  the  fountains  of 
memory  were  tapped,  they  have  come  back  with  nearly  their 
original  freshness. 

On  December  25,  1850,  the  three  members  of  the  Board  and 
their  wives  were  taking  their  Christmas  dinner  together  at  the 
old  Residency  house  at  Anarkulli.  The  host  was,  of  course, 
the  President,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  ; and  the  only  other  guest 
present  was  Dr.  Hathaway,  the  civil  surgeon.  The  ladies  had 
retired,  and  there  had  been  a few  minutes’  silence,  when  Sir 
Henry  turned  abruptly  to  his  brother,  and  said,  ‘ I wonder  what 
the  two  poor  old  Simpsons  are  doing  at  this  moment,  and 
whether  they  have  had  any  better  dinner  than  usual  to-day  ! ’ 
The  Simpsons,  it  must  be  explained,  were  twin  brothers  in  very 
humble  circumstances,  who  had  been  ushers  in  Foyle  College. 
The  life  of  an  usher  in  a private  school,  never  a very  easy  one, 
was  not  likely  to  have  been  more  than  usually  pleasant  amidst 
a lot  of  rough  Irish  boys  ; and  the  Lawrences,  in  particular, 
were  fully  conscious  that,  in  their  exuberant  boyish  spirits,  they 
had  not  done  as  much  as  they  might  to  make  a galling  yoke 
easy,  or  a heavy  burden  light.  Sir  Henry’s  sudden  apostrophe 
aw’akened  many  old  memories  of  the  school  life  at  Londonderry  ; 
and,  after  a few  remarks  had  been  made  upon  the  singular  coinci- 
dence, that  the  three  men  who  had  been  at  school  together  as 
boys  so  many  years  back,  now  found  themselves  associated  to- 


336 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


gether  once  more  as  the  rulers  of  the  Punjab,  Henry  Lawrence, 
with  the  impulsive  generosity  which  formed  so  prominent  a 
part  of  his  character,  exclaimed,  ‘ I’ll  tell  you  what  we  will  do. 
The  Simpsons  must  be  very  old,  and,  I should  think,  nearly 
blind  ; they  cannot  be  well  off  ; let  us  each  put  down  50/.  and 
send  it  to  them  to-morrow  as  “ a Christmas-box  from  a far-off 
land,  with  the  good  wishes  of  three  of  their  old  pupils,  now  mem- 
bers of  the  Punjab  Board  of  Administration  at  Lahore.”  ’ ‘ All 
right,’  said  John,  ‘ I’ll  give  50/.’  ‘All  right,’  said  Montgomery, 
‘ I’ll  give  another.’  The  cheques  were  drawn  and  exchanged  on 
the  morrow  for  a treasury  remittance-note  on  England,  which 
was  duly  despatched. 

The  kind  message  with  its  enclosure  found  its  way  safely 
across  the  ocean.  Weeks  passed  by,  each  spent  in  hard  work 
and  rough  work,  and  the  subject  was  nearly  forgotten,  when 
one  morning,  amongst  the  pile  of  letters  brought  in  by  the 
dawk,  there  was  one  bearing  an  Irish  post-mark.  It  was  from 
the  old  Simpson  brothers  at  Londonderry.  The  characters  were 
written  in  a tremulous  hand,  and  in  many  places  were  almost 
illegible  from  the  writer’s  tears,  which  had  evidently  fallen  al- 
most faster  than  he  wrote.  That  letter,  if  it  could  be  found, 
would  be  worth  publishing.  Very  possibly,  it  was  preserved 
by  Sir  Henry  ; and  had  it  not  been  for  the  unfortunate  circum- 
stances under  which  his  papers  were  passed  about  from  hand  to 
hand,  in  order  that  a record  of  his  life  might  be  handed  down  to 
posterity,  it  might,  perhaps,  be  found  among  them  now.  But 
the  memory  of  him  to  whom  I owe  the  story  has  carefully  pre- 
served, through  the  lapse  of  thirty  years,  its  general  drift  and 
its  most  salient  points.  It  began  : ‘ My  dear,  kind  boys  ; ’ but 
the  pen  of  the  old  man  had  afterwards  been  drawn  through  the 
word  ‘boys,’ and  there  had  been  substituted  for  it  the  word 
4 friends.’  It  went  on  to  thank  the  donors,  in  the  name  of  his 
brother  as  well  as  of  himself,  for  their  most  generous  gift, 
which,  he  said,  would  go  far  to  keep  them  from  want  during 
the  short  time  that  might  be  left  to  them  ; but  far  above  the 
actual  value  of  the  present,  was  the  preciousness  of  the  thought 
that  they  had  not  been  forgotten  by  their  old  pupils,  in  what 
seemed  to  be  the  very  high  position  to  which  they  had  risen.  He 
did  not  know  what  the  ‘ Board  of  Administration  ’ meant,  but 
he  felt  sure  it  was  something  very  important ; and  he  added  in 
a postscript  to  his  letter,  with  childlike  simplicity,  that  he  had 
looked  out  the  Punjab  in  ‘ the  old  school  atlas,’  which  they  had 


1 849—52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE.- 


337 


so  often  used  together,  but  he  could  not  find  either  it  or  La- 
hore ! ‘ Oh,’  said  Sir  Henry,  when  he  came  to  this  part  in  the 

letter,  to  his  friend  Dr.  Hathaway,  who  happened  again  to  be 
present,  * if  you  could  only  see,  as  I can  see  it  now,  that  grimy 
old  atlas,  grown  still  more  grimy  by  its  use  during  the  thirty 
years  which  have  passed  since  I knew  it,  and  the  poor  old  fellow 
trying  to  find  in  it  what  it  does  not  contain  ! ’ 

It  only  remains  to  be  added — and  it  gives  a touching  finish 
to  the  story — that  the  writer  of  the  letter,  old  as  he  was,  lived 
on  till  he  saw  one  of  his  three  pupils  in  the  flesh  once  more; 
and  that,  when  the  citizens  of  Londonderry  were  giving  a ban- 
quet to  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  who  had  just  then  returned 
from  India,  with  the  honours  of  the  Mutiny  thick  upon  him, 
the  half-blind  old  schoolmaster  managed,  with  the  help  of  a 
ticket  that  had  been  given  him,  to  be  present  also.  His  purse 
may  have  been  as  empty,  but  his  heart  must  certainly  have  been 
as  full  as  that  of  any  of  the  assembled  guests  ; and  it  may  safely 
be  asserted  that  by  this  time  he  hardly  needed  to  look  into  ‘ the 
old  school  atlas  ’ to  find  where  the  Punjab  lay ; for  it  was  from 
the  Punjab  that  India  had  been  saved,  and  it  was  to  his  three 
old  pupils  and  benefactors,  Henry  Lawrence,  John  Lawrence, 
and  Robert  Montgomery,  that  its  salvation  was  admitted  to  be 
chiefly  due.  He  died  very  shortly  afterwards,  happy  that  he 
had  lived  on,  like  Ulysses’  faithful  dog  of  old,  to  see  the  day  of 
his  pupil’s,  or  of  his  lord’s  return. 

"Apyov  S'  av  Kara  p-oip'  tAafiev  piAavo s Oavaroio 

A vtlk  ISovt  'OSvcrrja  ietKourw  iviairrui. 


In  January,  1852,  Lord  Stanley  (now  the  Earl  of  Derby),  who 
was  then  making  a tour  in  India,  visited  Lahore,  and  was,  for  a 
few  days,  the  guest  of  John  Lawrence.  It  was  here  that  he  saw 
for  the  first  time  the  man  whom,  on  his  return  to  England  seven 
years  later,  he  was  to  appoint  to  the  newly  formed  Indian  Coun- 
cil, and  whom,  twenty  years  later  again,  in  his  admirable  speech 
at  the  * Lawrence  Memorial  ’ meeting  at  the  Mansion  House,  he 
was  to  describe  in  two  words,  which,  in  my  opinion,  hit  off 
better  than  any  others  that  which  was  most  essential  in  John 
Lawrence’s  character.  ‘ Without,’  said  Lord  Derby,  ‘ claiming 
any  special  intimacy  with  Lord  Lawrence,  I may  say,  as  the 
world  goes,  that  I knew  him  well,  and  the  impression  that  his 
character  always  left  on  my  mind  I can  only  describe  as  that  of 
Vol.  I.— 22 


338 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


a certain  heroic  simplicity.'  Lord  Dalhousie,  in  anticipation  of 
Lord  Stanley’s  visit  to  the  Punjab,  had  written  previously  to 
both  the  brothers,  begging  them,  if  possible,  to  prevent  his  ex- 
tending his  travels  to  the  dangerous  North-West  frontier,  on 
which  the  Mohmunds  and  the  Swattis  were  just  then  giving 
trouble.  ‘ If  any  ill-starred  accident  should  happen,’  said  he, 
‘ it  would  make  a good  deal  of  difference  whether  it  happened 
to  Lord  Stanley  and  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  or  to  John  Tomkins 
and  Bill  Higgins.’  But  British  India  is,  happily,  not  like  Rus- 
sian Turkestan  ; and  not  even  the  most  cautious  Governor- 
General  would  think  of  putting  anything  but  moral  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  any  visitor,  English  or  Russian,  who  might 
wish  to  see  any  part  of  his  dominions.  ‘ Lord  Stanley,’  writes 
John  Lawrence  in  reply  to  the  Governor-General,  ‘ has  just  left 
us  after  seeing  all  that  was  to  be  seen  at  Lahore.  He  will  join 
my  brother  in  Huzara  and  then  go  with  him  via  Peshawur  to 
the  Derajat ; he  was  not  to  be  dissuaded  from  the  Kohat  pass.’ 
It  was  the  last  tour,  as  it  turned  out,  that  Henry  Lawrence  was 
ever  to  take  along  the  frontier  of  the  province  which  he  loved, 
and  which  loved  him  so  well. 

There  is  little  of  general  or  even  of  biographical  interest  in 
the  correspondence  which  passed  between  John  Lawrence  and 
the  Governor-General  while  his  elder  brother  was  absent  on 
this  and  a subsequent  tour  in  the  interior.  The  Mohmunds 
and  Swattis  and  ‘ fanatics  of  Sitana,’  afterwards  so  famous, 
had  been  showing  signs  of  hostility,  and  John  Lawrence,  as  his 
letters  prove,  was  in  favour  of  offensive  operations  against 
them,  from  which  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  with  his  usual  caution, 
seemed  to  shrink. 

It  is  quite  clear  how  averse  Sir  Colin  Campbell  is  to  entering  the  hills 
at  all.  Whatever  reasons  he  may  give,  his  real  one  is  a want  of  confi- 
dence in  the  Regular  Native  Infantry.  This  feeling  is  not  only  shared  by 
nearly  all  the  Queen’s  officers  but  by  many  of  the  Company’s  officers 
also.  I believe  if  they  expressed  their  real  opinion  they  would  prefer  go- 
ing with  any  infantry  but  the  Regulars.  The  Guides,  Ghoorkas,  Punjab 
Irregulars,  are  all  thought  more  of  for  hill  warfare  than  the  Regulars. 
Would  it  not  then,  my  Lord,  be  well  to  reduce  the  number  of  the  lat- 
ter, and  increase  our  Irregular  infantry  ? I would  not  advocate  too  large 
a reduction  of  the  Regulars.  Their  fidelity  and  habits  of  obedience  will 
always  make  them  valuable,  but  a mixture  of  troops  of  other  races  would 
make  our  army  more  efficient  in  time  of  war,  and  quite  as  safe  in  peace. 

. . . I feel  convinced  that  until  we  do  inflict  a real  chastisement  on 

either  the  Mohmunds  or  Swattis,  the  Peshawur  valley  will  never  be 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


339 


tranquil,  ami  that  the  longer  the  punishment  is  delayed,  the  more  mani- 
fest this  will  be.  I cannot  believe  that  it  would  be  a difficult  matter  to 
effect  our  object,  if  we  only  go  at  it  with  a real  will. 

About  this  time  George  Edmondstone,  the  able  Commissioner 
of  the  Cis-Sutlej  States,  fell  ill  and  was  obliged  to  contemplate 
a visit  to  England,  and  the  arrangements  for  filling  his  place, 
and  that  of  the  still  more  important  Commissionership  of  La- 
hore, rendered  vacant  by  the  elevation  of  Montgomery,  occu- 
pied very  much  of  John  Lawrence’s  time  and  thoughts.  He 
brought  the  claims  of  all  possible  candidates  before  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  with  whom  the  patronage  rested,  with  judicial  impar- 
tiality, and  after  weighing  them  in  his  own  mind,  ended  by 
recommending  George  Barnes  for  the  one  appointment,  and 
Charles  Raikes,  Collector  of  Mynpoorie,  and  formerly,  as  will 
be  remembered,  his  own  assistant  at  Paniput,  for  the  other. 
Henry  Lawrence  was  inclined  to  recommend  other  arrange- 
ments, but  the  Governor-General,  as  usual,  agreed  with  John. 

It  is  hopeless  (John  Lawrence  had  written  to  him)  to  look  for  results  of 
real  value  unless  the  Commissioner  is  a first-rate  officer,  thoroughly  un- 
derstanding that  which  he  has  to  teach.  In  looking  back  on  the  past 
three  years  since  annexation,  I feel  that  we  owe  much  to  these  officers. 
We  may  lay  down  rules  and  principles,  but  these  fall  still-born  to  the 
ground  without  Commissioners  to  explain  their  scope  and  meaning,  and 
see  them  carried  out.  The  progress  in  each  division  has  been  in  a di- 
rect proportion  to  the  zeal,  the  energy,  and  the  experience  of  its  Com- 
missioners. 

I write  to  your  Lordship  frankly  and  openly.  I feel  that  the  good  of 
the  country  and  my  own  reputation  depend  on  the  men  who  are  selected 
for  high  employment.  . . . Thornton  has  excellent  qualities.  He  is 

a good  revenue  officer,  perhaps  the  best  we  have,  and  is  efficient  in  all 
departments.  His  main  excellence  is  the  pains  he  takes  to  instruct  and 
train  the  men  under  him. 

It  may  be  convenient  here,  and  it  is  certainly  just  and  right, 
now  that  ive  have  reached  the  time  when  the  Board  which  had 
done  such  splendid  work  in  the  Punjab  was  about  to  be  swept 
away,  to  bring  together  the  names  of  the  more  prominent  or 
more  promising  of  those  officers  to  whom  the  Lawrence 
brothers  were  so  anxious  to  put  it  on  record  that  a large  part 
of  their  success  was  due.  Many  of  their  names  have  occurred 
before  in  this  biography  ; many  of  them  will  occur  again  and 
again,  some  as  among  the  foremost  heroes,  military  or  civil,  of 


340 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


the  Mutiny,  some  as  excellent  generals  in  India  or  outside  of 
it,  some  as  able  administrators  of  provinces  as  vast  or  vaster 
than  the  Punjab  itself,  others  again  as  civil  engineers,  as 
writers,  as  explorers,  as  statesmen — but  all  of  them  connected 
by  ties  of  friendship  or  respect  with  the  subject  of  this  bio- 
graphy, and  all  of  them,  also,  fellow-workers  with  him  in  a 
school  where  there  was  no  room  for  the  unwilling,  the  laggard, 
the  incompetent. 

Of  the  seven  Commissionerships,  then,  into  which  the  whole 
annexed  Sikh  territory  had  been  divided,  Lahore  had  fallen  at 
first  to  Montgomery  and  afterwards  to  Raikes,  Jhelum  to  Ed- 
ward Thornton,  Mooltan  to  Edgeworth,  Leiaand  the  Derajat  to 
Ross,  Peshawur  and  Huzara  to  Mackeson,  the  Cis-Sutlej  at 
first  to  Edmondstone  and  afterwards  to  Barnes,  the  Trans-Sutlej, 
John  Lawrence’s  own  first  post  of  dignity,  to  Donald  Macleod. 

But  many  of  the  subordinate  positions  were  held  by  men  who 
were  quite  as  promising,  and  some  of  them  have  risen  to  even 
greater  distinction  than  those  I have  already  mentioned.  Such 
were  men  like  Robert  Napier  and  Neville  Chamberlain,  John 
Nicholson  and  Herbert  Edwardes,  George  Macgregor  and 
James  Macpherson,  George  Lawrence  and  Harry  Lumsden, 
John  Becher  and  Alexander  Taylor,  James  Abbott  and  Saun- 
ders Abbott,  Crawford  Chamberlain  and  Reynell  Taylor, 
George  Campbell  and  Richard  Temple,  Henry  Davies  and 
Robert  Cust,  Edward  Lake  and  George  Barnes,  Hercules 
Scott  and  Richard  Lawrence,  Lewin  Bowring  and  Edward 
Brandreth,  Richard  Pollock  and  Douglas  Forsyth.  Probably 
never,  in  the  whole  history  of  our  Indian  Empire,  have  there 
been  so  many  able  men  collected  together  within  the  limits  of 
a single  province,  and  never  has  there  been  a province  which 
could,  with  so  little  favour,  open  to  so  many  able  men  so  fair  a 
field. 

But  the  Lawrence  brothers,  whose  fame  had  brought  all 
these  distinguished  men  together,  and  had  made  employment 
in  the  Punjab  to  be  an  object  of  ambition  throughout  India, 
had  now,  as  it  seemed,  pretty  well  completed  such  good  work 
for  it  as  they  could  do  best  in  double  harness.  The  Board  had 
never  been  looked  upon  either  by  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  estab- 
lished it,  or  by  the  members  of  which  it  was  composed,  as  more 
than  a provisional  arrangement  to  meet  temporary  needs. 
These  needs  it  met,  as  I have  already  pointed  out,  in  a way  in 
which  no  other  arrangement  would,  probably,  have  done. 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


341 


Under  its  rule  the  country  had  quieted  down.  Its  fierce  and 
fanatical  soldiers  had  become  peaceful  agriculturists.  The 
military  arrangements  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier,  and  the 
police  arrangements  fflr  the  suppression  of  crime  and  the  pre- 
servation of  order,  had  been  almost  completed.  Organised  bri- 
gandage and  violent  crime  had  ceased  to  exist.  The  land-tax 
had  been  lightened,  and  the  whole  revenue  arrangements  over- 
hauled. Material  improvements  of  every  kind — bridges,  roads, 
canals,  courts  of  justice,  barracks,  schools,  hospitals,  asylums 
— had  been  projected  and  had  been  taken  in  hand.  The  old 
order,  in  fact,  had  already  changed,  and  had  given  place  to  the 
new  ; and  if  much  still  remained  to  be  done,  the  country  had 
been  fairly  launched  on  a career  of  peaceful  progress  and  con- 
tentment. And  now  a normal  state  of  things  throughout  the 
newly  annexed  province  seemed  to  call  for  a less  abnormal 
government  than  that  of  a Board. 

These  general  considerations  in  favour  of  a change  derived 
fresh  force  from  the  idiosyncracies  of  the  triumvirate.  The 
differences  of  temperament,  of  training,  of  aptitude,  and  of 
methods  of  work,  which  had  been  pretty  well  apparent  between 
the  brothers  before  the  Board  was  formed,  were  forced  into 
prominence  as  soon  as  it  met,  and  became  more  and  more 
marked  as  the  work  grew  under  their  hands,  and  all  pointed  to 
the  dissolution  of  a partnership  as  the  best,  though  a melan- 
choly, cure  for  a state  of  things  which  had  become  intolerable 
to  the  partners.  The  advent  of  Montgomery,  the  lifelong  friend 
of  the  two  brothers,  full  of  promise  as  it  had  seemed  at  the 
moment,  made  things  worse  rather  than  better,  at  all  events  to 
the  mind  of  the  brother  who  had  first  summoned  him  to  the 
Punjab.  Montgomery  was,  in  a special  sense,  the  friend  of 
Henry.  But  his  training  and  general  views  of  policy  tended  to 
make  him  in  almost  all  disputed  questions  agree  with  John. 
Recommended  by  Henry  for  the  Board  in  the  hope  that  he 
would  oppose  John’s  views,  it  turned  out  that,  like  Balaam,  he 
blessed  him  altogether,  and  Henry  Lawrence,  one  of  whose 
besetting  faults,  as  it  appears  to  me,  was  an  inability  at  times 
to  distinguish  between  honest  disagreement  and  personal  or 
interested  antagonism,  seemed  to  feel  once  and  again  that,  like 
Ahithophel,  his  own  familiar  friend  had  lifted  up  his  heel 
against  him. 

The  question  of  public  policy  on  which,  as  I have  often 
pointed  out,  the  two  brothers  differed  most  was  that  of  the 


342 


• LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


treatment  of  the  jagheerdars,  or  men  who,  under  the  native 
system  of  government,  had  received  in  return  for  services — 
past,  present,  or  future,  rendered  or  only  imagined — a lien  on 
the  land  revenue  of  particular  districts.  It  was  a question  be- 
set with  difficulties  everywhere,  but  more  particularly  so  in  the 
Punjab,  where  tenures  of  the  kind  were  unusually  numerous 
and  important.  A large  part  of  Runjeet  Sing’s  army  had  con- 
sisted of  cavalry  contingents  furnished  by  chiefs  who  had  held 
their  lands  by  this  kind  of  feudal  tenure.  The  principal  minis- 
ters of  the  Lahore  Court,  the  families  of  Runjeet  Sing’s  chief 
warriors,  the  wives,  widows,  and  concubines  of  himself  and  his 
three  shadowy  successors,  the  royal  barber  and  the  royal  apoth- 
ecary, the  royal  astrologer  and  the  cook  who  had  invented  a 
new  dish  which  suited  the  royal  palate,  Brahmins  and  fakirs, 
schools  and  charitable  institutions,  were  all  supported  at  the 
time  of  annexation,  not  by  payments  in  hard  cash  from  the 
treasury,  but  by  alienations  of  the  land-tax,  or,  to  speak 
more  accurately,  by  the  right  given  to  the  incumbents  to 
squeeze  as  much  revenue  as  they  could  out  of  a given  district. 
These  alienations  had,  sometimes,  been  continued  by  the  na- 
tive rulers  from  generation  to  generation,  sometimes  they  had 
been  immediately  and  arbitrarily  resumed.  But  in  all  cases  it 
was  within  the  power  of  the  Government  to  recall  them  at  its 
pleasure.  Such  a system  might  suit  a government  which  cared 
only  for  revenue  which  it  should  be  no  trouble  to  collect,  and 
for  an  army  which  it  should  be  no  trouble  to  raise  and  to  main- 
tain, but  such  could  not  be  the  methods  or  the  objects  of  the 
English  Government.  The  Sikhs  administered  the  country  by 
means  of  jagheerdars,  and  paid  them  by  their  jagheers  ; the 
English  administered  it  by  highly  paid  British  officers,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  endeavoured  to  lower  the  land-tax,  and  to 
introduce  grand  material  reforms.  Was  it  possible  to  combine 
the  two  methods  of  government  ? This  is  the  kernel  of  the 
whole  question,  and  on  the  answer  given  to  it  will  depend  the 
verdict  that  we  give  on  the  chief  cause  of  dispute  between  the 
brothers. 

It  was,  of  course,  a question  of  degree  rather  than  of  kind 
between  them.  Certain  general  principles  were  laid  down  by 
the  Supreme  Government  which  seem,  under  the  circumstances, 
to  have  been  liberal  enough.  For  instance,  all  authorised 
grants  to  former  rulers  and  all  State  pensions  were  to  be  main- 
tained in  perpetuity  so  long  as  the  object  of  the  endowment 


i 849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


343 


was  fulfilled.  It  was  in  the  details  of  the  cases  which  could  not 
be  fixed  by  any  hard  and  fast  rule,  and  were  wisely  left  for 
special  consideration,  that  the  two  brothers  came  most  into  col- 
lision. In  these  Henry,  alike  from  temperament  and  policy, 
always  leaned  to  the  view  most  favourable  to  the  jagheerdar. 
John  leaned,  in  like  manner,  to  the  view  most  favourable  to 
the  interest  of  the  masses,  and  therefore  also  to  the  objects  of 
the  English  Government. 

The  preliminary  inquiries  which  had  to  be  instituted  were  of 
portentous  proportions.  There  were  some  ten  thousand  cases 
of  pensions  alone,  not  to  speak  of  an  indefinite  number  of  jag- 
heers,  varying  in  size  from  a province  to  a village.  Herbert 
Edwardes  had  been  especially  appointed  to  conduct  the  prelim- 
inary inquiry  in  each  case,  and,  when  he  was  wanted  elsewhere, 
John  Becher  succeeded  to  the  duty.  Becher,  whose  general 
sympathies  were  more  in  accord  with  Henry,  usually  recom- 
mended a settlement  very  much  in  favour  of  the  jagheerdar. 
He  would  take  the  case  first  to  the  President,  who  was  working 
in  one  room  of  the  Resider.cy,  and  who  always  countersigned 
his  recommendation  ; he  then  took  it  to  John,  who  was  work- 
ing in  an  adjoining  room,  and  who  would  say,  with  a merry 
twinkle  of  his  eye  which  no  one  appreciated  more  than  John 
Becher  himself,  ‘ Ah,  I see  you  want  to  get  over  me  and  let 
these  lazy  fellows  waste  the  public  money.  No,  I won’t  have 
it ; sweep  it  away  ! ’ Becher  then  took  the  case  to  Montgom- 
ery, who  generally  agreed  with  John.  Thus  it  happened,  as 
Richard  Temple  once  acutely  remarked  to  Herbert  Edwardes, 
that,  in  these  matters,  while  each  brother  was  a salutary  check 
on  the  other,  they,  at  the  same  time,  confirmed  each  other’s 
faults.  Henry  was  more  lavish  in  his  proposals  because  he 
thought  that  John  would  attempt  to  cut  them  down,  whatever 
their  nature,  and  John  was  more  hard  and  economical  upon 
parallel  reasoning. 

The  advent  of  Montgomery,  in  October,  1851,  and  the  at- 
tempt made  by  John  in  the  interests  of  peace  to  procure  a di- 
vision of  labour,  had  seemed,  for  the  moment,  to  lessen  the 
friction.  Aut  it  was  for  the  moment  only.  In  May,  1852 — in 
the  interval,  that  is,  between  his  last  tour  to  the  Derajat  fron- 
tier and  that  to  Dhurmsala — Henry  wrote  to  Montgomery  a long 
letter  of  complaint  against  John,  with  the  request  that  he  would 
show  it  to  the  delinquent ; and  John  replied,  on  the  following 
day,  at  much  greater  length,  carrying  the  war  into  the  enemy’s 


344 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


country,  and  ending  with  a similar  request.  Montgomery,  ‘ a 
regular  buffer,’  as  he  humorously  describes  himself,  ‘ between 
two  high-pressure  engines,’  in  forwarding  John’s  reply  to 
Henry,  gave  him  some  wise  advice,  in  every  word  of  which 
those  who  know  him  well  may  see  the  man.  ‘ Read  it,’  he  said, 
‘gently  and  calmly,  and  I think  you  had  better  not  answer  it. 
I doubt  not  that  you  could  write  a folio  in  reply,  but  there 
would  be  no  use.  With  your  very  different  views  you  must 
both  agree  to  differ,  and  when  you  happen  to  agree,  be  thank- 
ful. It  had  been  far  happier  for  me  were  your  feelings  on  pub- 
lic matters  more  in  unison.  I am  happy  to  be  a friend  of  you 
both.  Though  differing  from  you  often,  I have  never  found 
you  judge  me  harshly.  I try  to  act  as  fairly  and  conscientiously 
as  I can,  and  would,  in  my  heart,  much  rather  agree  than  differ 
from  you.’ 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that,  in  spite  of  this  good  advice, 
a folio  was  written  in  reply.  But  the  ever-ready  peacemaker 
asked  permission  not  to  show  a letter  which  he  thought  would 
only  make  matters  worse.  ‘ I will  tell  John,  verbally,  that  you 
told  me  that  you  felt  hurt  at  his  letter,  and  will  mention  some 
of  the  most  prominent  of  your  remarks  as  mildly  as  I can.’ 
Never  surely  did  any  ‘ buffer  ’ do  such  highly  moral  work,  or 
strive  so  manfully  to  keep  two  high-pressure  engines  from  in- 
juring each  other  ! 

Extracts  from  the  correspondence,  sufficient  to  show  its  gen- 
eral purport,  have  been  given  by  Herman  Merivale  in  his  life 
of  Sir  Henry  ; and,  like  him,  I see  no  good  end  which  could  be 
answered  by  publishing,  at  this  distance  of  time,  the  exact 
charges  and  counter-charges  brought  against  each  other  by  two 
high-spirited  and  noble-minded  brothers,  whose  devotion  to 
each  other  was,  after  all,  only  less  than  their  devotion  to  what 
each  considered  to  be  his  public  duty. 

Non  nostrum  inter  vos  tantas  componere  lites 

Et  tu  dignus,  et  hie. 

Many  of  the  faults  alleged,  such  as  the  interference  of  one 
brother  with  the  duties  of  the  other,  were  no  faults  at  all,  but 
were  the  result  of  the  purest  benevolence  ; others,  if  they  were 
faults,  were  at  least  faults  on  virtue’s  side,  and  turned  out  to 
be  most  advantageous  to  the  public  interest others,  again,  ex- 
isted only  in  the  heated  imagination  of  the  writer.  What  por- 
tion of  the  mutual  recriminations  I deem  to  have  been,  to  some 


i 849-5 2 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


345 


extent,  well  founded — the  uncontrolled  temper,  the  personal 
antagonism,  the  desultoriness  and  dilatoriness  in  office  work  of 
Henry  ; the  bluntness  even  to  a fault,  the  masterful  spirit,  the 
unbending  will,  and  the  imperfect  sympathy  with  men  who 
were  the  victims  of  a bad  system,  of  John,  I have  endeavoured 
to  indicate  in  the  course  of  the  foregoing  narrative.  I feel  that 
I am  acting  more  in  the  spirit  of  Montgomery’s  advice,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  doing  what  each  brother  would,  in  his  cooler 
moments,  have  preferred,  if,  instead  of  reproducing  their  heated 
recriminations,  I quote  here  rather  a letter  written  by  John  to 
Lord  Dalhousie,  as  far  back  as  November  23,  1849 — a few 
months  only,  that  is,  after  annexation — which  states  with  judi- 
cial fairness  the  differences  which,  even  then,  he  felt  that  no  ef- 
forts could  bridge  over,  and,  at  the  same  time,  shows  how  ready 
he  was  to  be  thrown  overboard,  like  Jonah,  if,  by  that  means, 
the  ship  of  the  State  might  be  enabled  to  carry  more  sail  and 
proceed  more  cheerily  on  her  voyage. 

My  Lord, — I have  the  honour  to  acknowledge  your  Lordship’s  kind 
note  of  the  20th,  and  beg  to  offer  my  sincere  thanks  for  the  handsome 
terms  in  which  you  have  been  good  enough  to  express  your  sense  of  my 
exertions.  It  is,  unquestionably,  a source  of  gratification  to  know  that 
one’s  services,  however  humble,  are  appreciated  by  those  best  qualified 
to  judge.  Your  Lordship  may  be  assured  that,  so  long  as  I remain  at 
Lahore,  my  best  exertions  shall  never  be  wanting  in  whatever  berth  it 
may  be  my  fortune  to  fall. 

I have  all  my  life  been  a hard  worker,  and  it  has  now  become  a second 
nature  to  me.  I work,  therefore,  as  much  from  habit  as  from  principle. 
My  constitution  is  naturally  a strong  one,  and  I have  never  tried  it  un- 
fairly. But  it  requires  a good  deal  more  exercise  and  work  out  of  doors 
than  I am  now  able  to  afford  time  for. 

Had  I followed  the  dictates  of  my  own  feelings  I would  have  retained 
my  old  berth  in  the  Trans-Sutlej  territory,  where  my  duties  so  happily 
blended  mental  with  physical  exertion.  This  post  had  no  charms  for 
me  ; the  solitary  one,  that  of  ambition,  no  longer  existed  w'hen  Mr.  Man- 
sel  was  appointed  above  me.  I felt,  however,  that  it  was  the  post  of 
honour,  that  I was  expected  to  accept  it,  and  that  to  have  refused  would 
have  led  to  misconceptions.  Having  done  so,  I have  endeavoured  to  dis- 
charge the  duties  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  How  onerous  these  duties 
are,  few  can  understand  who  are  not  behind  the  scenes.  There  are 
many  drawbacks  to  my  position,  however  high  and  honourable,  inde- 
pendent of  that  of  health,  particularly  to  a man  of  decided  opinions  and 
peculiar  temperament.  If  I know  myself,  I believe  I should  be  happier 
and  equally  useful  to  the  State  if  I thought  and  acted  on  my  own  bottom. 
I am  not  well  fitted  by  nature  to  be  one  of  a triumvirate.  Right  or 


346 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


wrong,  I am  in  the  habit  of  quickly  making  up  my  mind  on  most  subjects, 
and  feel  little  hesitation  in  undertaking  the  responsibility  of  carrying  out 
my  views.  The  views  of  my  brother,  a man  far  abler  than  I am,  are  in 
many  respects  opposed  to  mine.  I can  no  more  expect  that  on  organic 
changes  he  will  give  way  to  me,  than  I can  to  him.  He  is  my  senior  in 
age,  and  we  have  always  been  staunch  friends.  It  pains  me  to  be  in 
a state  of  antagonism  towards  him.  A better  and  more  honourable  man 
I don’t  know,  or  one  more  anxious  to  discharge  his  duty  conscientiously  ; 
but  in  matters  of  civil  policy  of  the  first  importance  we  differ  greatly. 
With  Mr.  Mansel  I am  on  excellent  terms  ; but  his  views  incline  more  to 
my  brother’s  than  my  own.  Thus  I have  not  only  my  own  work  to  do, 
but  have  to  struggle  with  my  colleagues.  This  is  not  good  for  the  pub- 
lic service.  Its  emergencies  require  a united  and  vigorous  administra- 
tion. 

I have  no  claims  on  your  Lordship’s  patronage,  but  if  there  is  another 
post  available  in  which  my  talents  and  experience  can  be  usefully  em- 
ployed, I shall  be  glad  to  be  considered  a candidate.  I have  always  had 
the  credit  of  some  administrative  talent,  and  for  three  years  previous  to 
annexation  not  only  brought  my  own  charge — the  Trans-Sutlej  territory 
— into  the  flourishing  condition  it  is  in  now,  but  for  many  months,  during 
the  two  first  years,  was  also  employed  at  Lahore,  on  duties  foreign  to 
my  own  post.  Had  I been  a soldier  and  not  a civilian,  I should  have 
received  rank  and  honours.  Men  who  were  my  assistants,  who  were 
commencing  their  career  then,  have  gained  them,  and  justly. 

When  the  late  Governor-General  left  India,  the  last  letter  he  wrote 
was  to  me,  thanking  me  for  my  services,  and  telling  me  that,  had  he  re- 
mained, he  would  have  served  me.  Though  a little  vexed  at  the  mode 
in  which  Sir  Frederick  Currie  superseded  me  at  Lahore,  I felt  no  very 
anxious  desire  for  the  berth  ; for  I knew  too  well  its  difficulties  and  dan- 
gers, and  was  satisfied  with  what  I had.  I feel  myself  now  in  a false 
position,  and  would  be  glad  to  extricate  myself  if  I can  do  it  with  hon- 
our. 

I would  not  have  thus  intruded  my  hopes  and  wishes  on  your  Lordship 
but  for  the  consideration  I have  experienced  at  your  hands.  I will  not 
further  weary  your  Lordship  with  my  affairs.  I will  simply  add,  that  if 
it  is  necessary  that  I stay  at  Lahore,  I will  do  so  with  cheerfulness,  and 
fulfil  my  duties  as  long  as  health  and  strength  may  last. 

Lord  Dalhousie  shelved  the  request  thus  pathetically  made  by 
the  just  and  pregnant  remark  that,  however  the  brothers  might 
suffer,  the  result  was  unquestionably  beneficial  to  the  public. 
And  so  the  public-spirited  John  clung  gallantly  to  the  ship 
which  did  for  another  three  years  speed  steadily  on  her  course, 
but  with  ever-increasing  strain  to  those  who  had  to  work  her 
and  to  stand  in  all  weathers  at  the  helm.  At  last,  in  December, 
1852,  the  crisis  came.  The  Residency  at  Hyderabad  fell  vacant, 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


347 


and  both  brothers  wrote — almost  simultaneously — to  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  requesting  him  to  transfer  one  or  other  of  them  to  the 
vacant  post.  Each  avowed  frankly  his  own  preference  for  the 
Punjab,  but  each  expressed  his  readiness  and  even  anxiety  to 
leave  it  rather  than  prolong  the  existing  state  of'things.  Make 
any  arrangement,  was  the  upshot  of  their  request,  by  which 
we  may  yet  do  good  service  to  the  State,  but  let  it  be  in  lines 
where  our  different  views  may  obtain  their  appropriate  field. 
John  wrote  to  Courtenay,  the  Secretary  to  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral. The  letter  is  long,  but  it  is  important,  and  I quote  the 
greater  part  of  it. 


Lahore  : December  5.  1852. 

My  dear  Courtenay, — The  circumstance  that  General  Fraser  is  about 
to  leave  Hyderabad  has  led  me  to  a hope,  perhaps  a vain  one,  that  it 
may  give  an  opening  for  some  change  in  my  present  position.  I am 
well  aware  how  decidedly  the  Governor-General  was,  last  year,  opposed 
to  my  leaving  the  Punjab,  and  how  much  kindness  he  showed  me  in  giv- 
ing Mansel  Nagpore.  But  it  is  just  possible  that  the  same  objections 
may  not  appear  so  cogent  now.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I feel  a strong  desire 
to  explain  to  you  the  perplexities  of  my  situation.  My  brother  and  I 
work  together  no  better  than  we  formerly  did.  Indeed,  the  estrange- 
ment between  us  has  increased.  We  seldom  meet,  and  still  more  seldom 
discuss  public  matters.  I wish  to  make  no  imputation  against  him.  His 
antecedents  have  been  so  different  from  mine,  we  have  been  trained  in 
such  different  schools,  that  there  are  few  questions  of  internal  policy 
connected  with  the  administration  on  which  we  coincide.  I have  now, 
as  I have  always  had  since  annexation,  a very  large  portion  of  the  work 
to  do.  I have  endeavoured,  but  in  vain,  to  secure  a division  of  labour, 
not  simply  because  I was  impatient  of  advice,  or  averse  to  hear  the 
opinions  of  my  colleagues,  but  because  I found  it  was  the  only  way  to 
prevent  continual  collision.  I can  understand  each  member  working 
his  own  department,  enjoying  the  credit  of  success,  and  responsible  for 
failure.  I can  understand  three  members  working  in  unison  who  have  a 
general  unity  of  view,  and  the  work  of  all  thereby  lightened.  But  what 
I feel  is  the  mischief  of  two  men  brought  together,  who  have  both  strong 
wills  and  views  diametrically  opposed,  and  whose  modes  and  habits  of 
business  do  not  conform. 

The  Governor-General  once  remarked  to  me  that,  however  much 
we  might  both  suffer  from  such  a state  of  things,  the  result  has  been 
publicly  beneficial.  It  may  have  been  so,  but  this  is  daily  becoming 
less  apparent.  You  once  remarked  that  had  I given  way  more,  it  was 
not  improbable  that  my  brother  would  ere  this  have  gone  home.  But 
this  is  a mistake.  He  will  stay  in  India  as  long  as  he  can.  He  does 
not  like  England  ; his  wife  absolutely  dislikes  it.  He  will  live  and  die 
in  harness,  as  I have  often  heard  him  express  it.  But,  setting  all  this 


348 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


aside,  I should  be  sincerely  sorry  to  benefit  at  his  expense.  Moreover, 
it  would  have  been  neither  honourable  nor  becoming  to  have  given  up 
my  deeply  rooted  and  long-considered  views  of  public  matters  in  the 
hope  of  personal  benefit.  The  result,  also,  in  the  administration  would 
have  proved  different.  Our  antagonism  has  had  the  effect  of  securing  a 
middle  course,  but  it  has  lessened  the  force  of  the  administration  ; it  has 
delayed  the  despatch  of  business,  and  given  rise  to  anomalies  and  incon- 
sistencies in  our  correspondence  and  policy,  and  lessened  the  influence 
we  should  possess  over  our  subordinates.  To  me  this  state  of  things 
has  been  so  irksome,  so  painful,  that  I would  consent  to  great  sacrifices 
to  free  myself.  I care  not  how  much  work  I have,  how  great  may  be  my 
responsibilities,  if  I have  simply  to  depend  on  myself ; but  it  is  killing 
work  always  pulling  against  wind  and  tide,  always  fighting  for  the  unpop- 
ular and  ungrateful  cause. 

I am  the  member  of  the  Board  for  economy  even  to  frugality ; my 
brother  is  liberal  even  to  excess.  I see  that  the  expenses  of  the  country 
are  steadily  increasing,  and  its  income  rather  decreasing,  and  thus  that 
useful  and  necessary  expenditure  must  be  denied.  I am  constantly  urged 
to  give  my  countenance  to  measures  I deem  inexpedient,  and  my  refusal 
is  resented  as  personally  offensive.  I am  averse  to  passing  any  questions, 
to  recommending  any  measure,  without  scrutiny  ; this  necessity  is  not 
felt  by  my  brother,  or  he  satisfies  himself  by  a shorter  process,  and 
hence  I have  to  toil  through  every  detail.  Even  when  I go  away  for  a 
time  I gain  little,  for  I still  carry  my  own  immediate  work,  and  when  I 
return  find  accumulated  arrears. 

If  I feel  so  heavily  the  discomfort  of  my  position,  my  brother  is  equal- 
ly sensible  of  his  own.  He  thinks  he  has  not  that  power  and  influence 
which,  as  President,  he  should  have,  or  which  his  general  ability  and 
force  of  character  should  ensure  for  him.  He  deems  himself  checked 
and  trammelled  on  all  sides.  . . . If  Hyderabad  is  not  thought  suited 

to  me,  or  is  wanted  for  another,  I shall  be  glad  of  any  berth  which  may 
fall  vacant.  Rajpootana,  Lucknow,  Indore,  would,  any  of  them,  delight 
me.  I would  even  accept  a Commissioncrship,  and  go  back  to  the  hum- 
drum lifeof  the  North-West,  if  I can  do  so  with  honour.  My  first  impulse 
was  to  write  to  the  Governor-General.  On  reflection  I prefer  addressing 
you.  A refusal  through  you  will,  perhaps,  be  less  distressing  than  one 
from  his  Lordship.  You  can  say  as  little  or  as  much  to  him  as  you  think 
fit.  He  has  always  treated  me  with  frankness  and  consideration,  nor  do 
I wish  him  to  think  me  insensible  of  such  treatment.  I can  write  to  you 
with  more  ease  than  would  be  becoming  if  I addressed  his  Lordship. 

The  two  resignations  being  thus  practically  placed  together 
in  Lord  Dalhousie’s  hands,  it  remained  for  him  to  make  the 
embarrassing  choice,  which  he  had  so  long  managed  to  post- 
pone, between  them.  Ilad  it  still  been  his  wish  to  prolong  the 
existence  of  the  Board,  his  choice  would  hardly  have  been 


i S49-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


349 


doubtful  between  the  soldier  who  disagreed  with  so  much  of 
his  policy  and  the  civilian  who  heartily  approved  of  it.  liut 
he  had  long  since  made  up  his  mind,  when  a convenient  oppor- 
tunity should  occur,  to  dissolve  the  Board  itself  now  that  its 
work  was  done,  and  to  substitute  for  it  the  rule  of  a single 
man.  This  made  his  decision  to  be  almost  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  doubt.  No  conscientious  Governor-General  would 
be  likely  to  confide  the  destinies  of  so  vast  and  so  important  a 
province  to  the  supreme  command  of  a man  with  whom  he  was 
only  half  in  sympathy  and  to  whom,  owing  to  the  differences 
between  them,  he  had  never  given  more  than  half  his  confi- 
dence, when  there  was  a rival  candidate  on  whom  he  could  place 
the  most  implicit  reliance,  and  with  whom  he  could  feel  the  full- 
est sympathy.  The  Hyderabad  vacancy  had  already  been  filled 
up  by  the  appointment  of  Colonel  Low,  but  the  ‘ Agency  to 
the  Governor-General  in  Rajpootana,’  a post,  in  many  respects, 
admirably  suited  to  a man  who  had  such  keen  sympathy  with 
native  dynasties  and  which  required  its  occupant  to  travel 
about  all  the  cool  season,  and  allowed  him  to  rest  all  the  hot  in 
the  pleasant  retreat  of  Mount  Aboo,  was  offered  to  Henry  Law- 
rence instead. 

But  Rajpootana  was  not  the  Punjab.  It  was  not  the  country 
in  which  he  had  made  warm  personal  friends  by  thousands,  and 
round  which  the  labours  and  the  aspirations  of  a lifetime  had 
gathered.  What  booted  it  that  his  salary  as  Agent  was  to  be 
made  equal  to  that  which  he  had  had  as  member  of  the  Board  ; 
that  the  work  was  less  heavy  and  less  trying ; and  that  the 
Governor-General,  by  way  of  sugaring  the  bitter  pill  which  he 
had  to  swallow,  told  him  that  if  Sir  Thomas  Monro  himself  had 
been  a member  of  the  Board  he  would  still  have  been  driven  to 
appoint  ‘ a trained  civilian  ’ in  preference  to  him  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner ? All  this  was  like  so  much  vinegar  poured  into,  his 
open  wounds;  for  Henry  Lawrence,  if  he  was  not  ‘a  trained 
civilian,’  and  if  he  failed  therefore  in  the  more  mechanical  parts 
of  a civilian’s  duty — method,  accuracy  of  detail,  continuous  ap- 
plication— seems  to  have  been  altogether  unconscious  of  the 
failure  ; and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  for  twenty  years 
past  he  had  filled  civil  and  political  offices  in  the  North-West, 
on  the  Punjab  frontier,  and  in  the  Punjab  itself,  in  a way  in 
which  few  civilians  in  India  could  have  filled  them.  His  life 
was  henceforward  to  be  a wounded  life,  and  he  carried  with 
him  to  the  grave  a bitter  sense  of  what  he  thought  was  the  in- 


350 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1849-52 


jury  done  to  him  by  Lord  Dalhousie.  Perhaps  he  would  have 
been  more  or  less  than  human  if  it  had  not  been  so.  But  if  he 
needed  any  assurance  of  the  way  in  which  his  work  had  told, 
and  of  the  impress  which  he  would  leave  behind  him  in  the 
country  of  his  choice,  it  would  have  been  given  by  the  scene 
which,  as  more  than  one  person  who  was  present  has  described 
it  to  me,  was  witnessed  at  Lahore  when  the  decision  of  Lord 
Dalhousie — fully  expected,  yet  almost  stupefying  when  it  came  ; 
quite  justified  by  the  facts,  yet,  naturally  enough,  resented  and 
condemned — was  made  known  there.  Grief  was  depicted  on 
every  face.  Old  and  young,  rich  and  poor,  soldiers  and  civil- 
ians, Englishmen  and  natives,  each  and  all  felt  that  they  were 
about  to  lose  a friend.  Strong  men,  Herbert  Edwardes  conspic- 
uous amongst  them,  might  be  seen  weeping  like  little  children  ; 
and  when  the  last  of  those  last  moments  came,  and  Henry  Law- 
rence, on  January  20,  1853,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  sister, 
turned  his  back  for  ever  upon  Lahore  and  upon  the  Punjab,  a 
long  cavalcade  of  aged  native  chiefs  followed  him,  some  for 
five,  some  for  ten,  others  for  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  out  of 
the  city.  They  were  men,  too,  who  had  nothing  now  to  hope 
from  him,  for  the  sun  of  Henry  Lawrence  had  set,  in  the  Pun- 
jab at  least,  for  ever.  But  they  were  anxious  to  evidence,  by 
such  poor  signs  as  they  could  give,  their  grief,  their  gratitude, 
and  their  admiration.  It  was  a long,  living  funeral  procession 
from  Lahore  nearly  to  Umritsur.  Robert  Napier,  now  Lord 
Napier  of  Magdala,  was  the  last  to  tear  himself  away  from  one 
who  was  dearer  to  him  than  a brother.  ‘Kiss  him,’  said  Henry 
Lawrence  to  his  sister,  as  Napier  turned  back,  at  last,  heart- 
broken towards  Lahore.  ‘ Kiss  him,  he  is  my  best  and  dearest 
friend.’  When  he  reached  Umritsur,  at  the  house  of  Charles 
Saunders,  the  Deputy-Commissioner,  a new  group  of  mourners 
and  afresh  outburst  of  grief  awaited  him  ; and  thence  he  passed 
on  into  Rajpootana,  ‘dented  all  over,’  to  use  his  friend  Herbert 
Edwardes’  words,  ‘with  defeats  and  disapprovals,  honourable 
scars  in  the  eyes  of  the  bystanders.’  They  were  honourable, 
indeed,  because  they  were  all  of  them  received,  in  accordance 
with  his  own  chivalrous  character,  ‘ in  defence  of  those  who 
were  down.’ 

‘ To  know  Sir  Henry  was  to  love  him,’  says  one  of  his  friends. 
‘No  man  ever  dined  at  Sir  Henry’s  table  without  learning  from 
him  to  think  more  kindly  of  the  natives,’  says  another.  ‘ His 
character  was  far  above  his  career,  distinguished  as  that  career 


1849-52 


HENRY  AND  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 


351 


was,’  said  Lord  Stanley.  * There  is  not,  I am  sure,’  said  Lord 
Canning,  when  the  disastrous  news  of  his  soldier’s  death  at 
Lucknow  thrilled  throughout  England  and  India,  ‘any  English- 
man in  India  who  does  not  regard  the  loss  of  Sir  Henry  Law- 
rence as  one  of  the  heaviest  of  public  calamities.  There  is  not, 
I believe,  a native  of  the  provinces  where  he  has  held  authority 
who  will  not  remember  his  name  as  that  of  a friend  and  gener- 
ous benefactor  to  the  races  of  India.’ 

It  has  been  my  duty  in  the  course  of  this  narrative  to  point 
out  some  of  the  specialities  in  his  training  and  his  character 
which,  in  my  judgment,  rendered  him  less  eligible  than  his 
younger  brother  for  the  post  of  Chief  Commissioner  of  the 
Punjab.  It  is,  therefore,  all  the  more  incumbent  upon  me  to 
say,  that  having  studied  large  portions  of  his  unpublished  cor- 
respondence, and  having  conversed  with  most  of  his  surviving 
friends  and  relations,  some  of  them  followers  and  admirers  of 
the  younger  rather  than  of  the  elder  brother,  it  is  my  deliberate 
conviction  that,  take  him  all  in  all,  his  moral  as  well  as  his  in- 
tellectual qualities,  no  Englishman  who  has  been  in  India  has 
ever  influenced  other  men  so  much  for  good  ; nobody  has  ever 
done  so  much  towards  bridging  over  the  gulf  that  separates 
race  from  race,  colour  from  colour,  and  creed  from  creed  ; no- 
body has  ever  been  so  beloved,  nobody  has  ever  deserved  to  be 
so  beloved,  as  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  1852-1853. 

The  departure  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  from  the  Punjab,  if  it 
gave  an  immediate  feeling  of  relief  from  an  intolerable  tension, 
was  also  a cause  of  sore  distress  of  mind  to  the  brother  who 
had  been  working  with  him  under  such  strained  relations  but 
with  such  truly  brotherly  affection.  How  painful  and  how  dis- 
tressing the  whole  circumstances  had  been  to  him  his  innermost 
circle  of  friends  and  relations  alone  knew  fully.  But  it  may 
also  be  inferred  from  the  whole  course  of  the  preceding  narra- 
tive. To  have  worked  as  he  had  done  for  and  with  his  brother, 
often  at  the  expense  of  his  personal  inclinations,  of  his  health, 
of  his  family  life  for  years  past,  ever  since,  in  fact,  our  connec- 
tion with  the  Punjab  had  begun,  and  then  to  have  been  driven 
at  last  to  take  the  place  which  that  brother  might  have  been 
expected,  and  had  himself  expected,  to  fill ; to  feel  that  some  of 
the  best  officers  in  the  Punjab,  men  who  had  been  attracted 
thither  by  Henry,  and  regarded  him  with  enthusiastic  affection, 
were  looking  askance  at  him,  perhaps  attributing  to  him  un- 
worthy acts  or  unworthy  motives,  and  perhaps,  also,  preparing, 
like  Nicholson,  to  leave  him  in  the  lurch  and  follow  the  for- 
tunes of  their  old  master  ; to  feel  that  the  iron  had  entered  so 
deeply  into  his  brother’s  soul  as  to  make  it  doubtful  whether 
he  would  ever  care  to  see  him  again,  or  to  be  addressed  by  the 
old  familiar  name  of  ‘ Hal,’ 1 — all  this  must  have  been  distres- 
sing enough,  and,  for  the  time  at  all  events,  must  have  thrown 
the  other  feeling  of  relief  into  the  background. 

In  reply  to  a touching  letter  which  his  brother  had  written 
to  him  on  the  eve  of  his  departure,  begging  him  to  treat  the 
dispossessed  chiefs  kindly,  ‘ because  they  were  down,’  and  wish- 
ing him  all  success  in  his  new  post,  John  Lawrence  replied  as 
follows, — 


His  letters  to  his  brother  after  this  period  always  begin,  * My  dear  Henry.’ 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


353 


My  dear  Henry, — I have  received  your  kind  note,  and  can  only  say  in 
reply  that  I sincerely  wish  that  you  had  been  left  in  the  Punjab  to  carry 
out  your  own  views,  and  that  I had  got  another  berth.  I must  further 
say  that  where  I have  opposed  your  views  I have  done  it  from  a thorough 
conviction,  and  not  from  factious  or  interested  motives.  I will  give  every 
man  a fair  hearing,  and  will  endeavour  to  give  every  man  his  due.  More 
than  this  no  one  should  expect.  . . . It  is  more  than  probable  that 

you  and  I will  never  again  meet  ; but  I trust  that  all  unkindly  feeling  be- 
tween us  may  be  forgotten. 

Yours  affectionately, 

John  Lawrence. 

It  was  a melancholy  beginning  for  the  Chief  Commissioner- 
ship — a post  inferior  in  importance  to  few  in  India,  and  one 
which  Sir  Charles  Napier  had  himself  said  he  would  prefer  to 
the  command-in-chief  of  the  Indian  army.  But,  once  more,  it 
may  be  observed  that  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  the  State,  not 
less  than  of  the  brothers  themselves,  that  the  change  had  at  last 
been  made.  Henry  Lawrence  had  bridged  over  the  interval  be- 
tween the  native  and  the  English  systems,  had  eased  the  fall  of 
the  privileged  classes,  had  attracted  the  affections  of  all  ranks  to 
himself,  and  so,  in  a measure,  to  the  new  Government,  in  a way 
in  which  John  by  himself  could  certainly  not  have  done.  The 
work  of  pacification — Henry’s  proper  work — was  over.  The 
foundation  of  the  new  edifice  had  been  laid,  in  much  tribula- 
tion, perhaps,  but  by  a happy  compromise  between  the  ex- 
tremer  views  of  the  two  brothers.  It  now  remained  to  build 
upon  the  foundation  which  had  been  laid,  to  develop,  to  organ- 
ise, to  consolidate.  This  could  be  better  done  by  one  man  than 
by  three  ; and  the  warmest  admirers  of  Henry  will  admit  that, 
when  the  crisis  came  four  years  later,  it  was  well  for  England 
and  well  for  India  that  there  were  then,  and  that  there  had  been 
for  those  four  preceding  years,  no  divided  counsels  in  the  Pun- 
jab. It  was  well  that  there  was  one  clear  head,  one  firm  will, 
one  strong  hand,  to  which  anybody  and  everybody  could  look, 
and  which  would  be  free  to  judge,  to  issue  orders  and  to  strike, 
on  its  own  undivided  responsibility. 

The  work  of  John  Lawrence  was,  as  I have  already  pointed 
out,  to  be,  in  the  main,  one  of  development — of  progress,  that  is, 
within  lines  which  had  been,  to  a great  extent,  laid  down.  It  is 
unnecessary^,  therefore,  to  treat  the  four  years  of  peaceful  rule 
which  follow  with  the  particularity  of  detail  with  which  it  seem- 
ed desirable  to  describe  the  virgin  soil  and  the  new  fields  of  enter- 
Vol.  I.— 23 


354 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i852-53 


prise  and  activity  which  opened  out  before  the  Board.  The  ques- 
tions which  confronted  John  Lawrence  as  Chief  Commissioner 
were  much  the  same  as  those  with  which  he  had  had  to  deal  as 
one  of  the  triumvirate.  There  was  the  same  difficult  mountain 
frontier  to  defend  ; the  same  turbulent  and  faithless  tribes  to 
civilise,  to  conciliate,  or  to  coerce  ; the  same  deeply  rooted 
social  evils,  which  had  as  yet  been  scotched  only,  not  killed,  to 
grapple  with.  There  was  the  same  standing  question — which 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  solved  even  now — of  how  a rev- 
enue may  best  be  raised  from  the  land,  which  should  not  unduly 
depress  the  cultivator  and  yet  leave  a margin  for  those  grand 
material  and  social  improvements  which  had  been  set  on  foot. 
Finally,  there  were  the  same  diversities  of  character  and  temper 
in  the  staff  of  able  assistants  who  had  flocked  to  the  Punjab,  as 
to  the  crack  regiment  of  the  service,  from  all  parts  of  India,  to 
be  studied  and  humoured,  stimulated,  reconciled,  or  controlled. 

It  would  be  easy,  with  the  help  of  the  six  folio  volumes  of  let- 
ters written  by  Lord  Lawrence  during  this  period,  and  which,  of 
course,  I have  myself  carefully  studied  throughout,  to  show  in 
detail  how  he  dealt  with  each  of  these  and  a hundred  other 
difficulties  as  they  arose.  But  it  would  require  at  least  a folio 
volume  so  to  do,  and  it  would,  in  my  judgment,  both  here  and 
in  the  case  of  his  Viceroyalty,  defeat  the  primary  object  which  a 
biographer  ought  to  keep  in  view  throughout — the  bringing 
before  his  readers  in  the  boldest  possible  outlines  the  central 
figure.  In  such  a folio  volume  the  man  would  almost  necessarily 
be  lost  in  the  details,  very  often  in  the  driest  and  most  mechan- 
ical details,  of  his  work.  If  it  revealed  to  us  everything  that  he 
did,  it  would  be  at  the  cost  of  knowing  much  of  what  he  was. 
I do  not,  therefore,  propose  to  describe,  in  order  of  time  or  in 
minute  detail,  the  steps  by  which  each  wild  tribe  that  crossed 
our  frontier  was  repelled  and  punished,  and  sometimes  gradual- 
ly drawn  towards  a quiet  life  ; but  rather  to  show  what  that 
general  scheme  of  frontier  policy  was,  which  has  been  so  much 
attacked  and  so  much  misrepresented,  but  which  will  always,  as 
I think,  be  most  honourably  connected  with  Lord  Lawrence’s 
name — a policy  which  has  insured  the  safety  of  India,  has  hus- 
banded her  resources,  has  respected  the  rights  of  weaker  and 
more  barbarous  races,  and  has  imposed  a salutary  check  on  the 
aggressive  tendencies  which  are  always  natural,  and  not  always 
to  be  severely  condemned,  in  the  military  leaders  of  an  ener- 
getic and  expansive  race.  Neither  do  I propose  to  give  minute 


1852—53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  355 

statistics,  such  as  may  be  found  in  the  Punjab  Reports,  of  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  revenue  or  of  the  increase  or  diminution  of 
crime,  or  to  explain  how  this  or  that  misconception  in  the  mind 
of  a subordinate  against  a brother  officer,  or  against  his  chief, 
was  removed  by  an  infinite  expenditure  of  tact  and  patience  on 
the  part  of  that  chief  ; but  rather  to  point  out  how  he  impressed 
his  own  strong  personality,  his  own  single-minded  devotion  to 
the  public  service,  on  the  whole  body  of  his  subordinates  ; how 
he  got  rid  of  the  incompetent,  how  he  stimulated  the  slow,  how 
he  doubled  the  energies  even  of  the  most  energetic.  It  is  by 
such  a sketch  as  this,  rather  than  by  a detailed  history  of  his  ad- 
ministration, that  I hope  I shall  be  able  to  make  clear  to  others, 
within  the  limits  of  two  or  three  chapters,  what  I think  I have 
at  least  made  clear  to  myself  by  long  and  laborious  study — how 
it  was  that,  when  the  crisis  came,  John  Lawrence,  with  the  help 
of  the  men  whom  he  had  gathered  and  had  managed  to  keep 
around  him,  proved  equal  to  the  emergency  ; and  how  it  was 
that,  in  the  Punjab  and  outside  of  it,  everybody  alike,  his  enemies 
as  well  as  his  friends,  the  natives  as  well  as  the  Europeans,  felt 
that  nothing  could  well  go  wrong  so  long  as  he  was  at  the  helm. 

On  the  final  abolition  of  the  Board,  in  February,  1853,  John 
Lawrence  was  gazetted  ‘ Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab.’ 
He  alone  was  to  be  responsible  to  the  Supreme  Government  for 
carrying  out  its  orders.  He  was  to  be  the  head  of  the  executive 
in  all  its  branches,  to  take  charge  of  the  political  relations  with 
the  adjoining  states,  to  have  the  general  control  of  the  frontier 
force,  of  the  Guide  corps,  of  the  military  police,  and  of  the  Civil 
Engineer’s  department.  Under  him  there  were  to  be  two  ‘ Prin- 
cipal Commissioners,’  the  one  the  head  of  the  Judicial,  the  other 
of  the  Financial  departments  of  the  State.  The  division  of  la- 
bour for  which,  as  a member  of  the  Board,  he  had  so  often  and  so 
earnestly  pleaded,  was  thus  carried  out  under  the  most  favour- 
able auspices.  Each  of  the  two  officers  under  him  was  to  have 
sole  control  over  his  own  department  instead  of  a divided  joint 
control  over  all.  In  this  manner  his  attention  was  concentrated 
and  his  individual  responsibility  fixed,  while  uniformity  of  de- 
sign and  of  practice  was  secured  by  the  appointment  of  a single 
head. 

The  two  men  selected  to  fill  the  post  next  to  John  Lawrence 
in  dignity  were  both  of  them  men  after  his  own  heart.  Mont- 
gomery, of  course,  was  one  of  them.  He  became  Judicial 
Commissioner,  and,  as  such,  he  was  not  merely  to  be  the  chief 


35<5 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


judge  of  appeal  and  assize,  but  was  to  discharge  many  purely 
executive  functions,  to  superintend  the  roads,  to  be  the  head 
of  the  police,  to  have  the  control  of  the  local  and  municipal 
funds,  and  to  be  responsible  for  the  execution  of  miscellaneous 
improvements,  especially  for  the  progress  of  education.  The 
Financial  duties  fell  to  George  Edmondstone,  who  had  just  filled 
the  difficult  and  complicated  post  of  Commissioner  in  the  Cis- 
Sutlej  States,  and  whose  contemplated  return  to  England  had 
filled  John  Lawrence  with  anxiety  only  a few  weeks  before. 
Everything  now  went  smoothly  enough.  Arrears  of  all  kinds 
were  rapidly  cleared  off.  Those  officers  who  had  threatened, 
in  their  vexation,  to  leave  the  Punjab,  did  not  carry  out  their 
threat,  and  few  of  them  ever  talked  again  of  doing  so.  Those 
who  were  away  on  furlough  and  who  said,  in  their  vexation, 
that  they  would  never  return  to  it,  now  that  it  had  lost  Henry 
Lawrence,  were  glad  enough  to  do  so  when  they  found  how 
much  of  what  was  best  in  Henry  Lawrence’s  administration 
was  also  to  be  found  in  John’s.  Nicholson,  in  particular, 
whose  presence  among  the  wild  tribes  of  Bunnoo  John  Law- 
rence pronounced,  a few  months  later,  to  be  ‘ well  worth  the 
wing  of  a regiment,’  in  spite  of  the  hasty  resolve  which  I have 
just  mentioned,  and  in  spite  also  of  many  misunderstandings 
which  were  rendered  inevitable  by  his  masterful  spirit  and  un- 
governable temper,  was  induced  or  enabled  by  the  unvarying 
tact  and  temper  of  his  chief  to  remain  at  his  post  even  till  the 
Mutiny  broke  out.  A few  sentences  from  the  first  letter  which 
John  Lawrence  wrote  to  him — the  first  letter  which  he  wrote 
to  anyone  after  he  became  Chief  Commissioner— may,  in  view 
of  the  romantic  interest  attaching  to  the  recipient  and  the  char- 
acteristic mixture  of  frankness  and  friendliness  on  the  writer’s 
part,  fitly  find  a place  here. 

Lahore  : January  22. 

My  dear  Nicholson,—  . . . You  have  lost  a good  friend  in  my 

brother,  but  I hope  to  prove  just  as  staunch  a one  to  you.  I set  a great 
value  on  your  zeal,  energy,  and  administrative  powers,  though  I may 
sometimes  think  you  have  a good  deal  to  learn.  You  may  rest  assured 
of  my  support  and  goodwill  in  all  your  labours.  You  may  depend  on  it 
that  order,  rule,  and  law  are  good  in  the  hands  of  those  who  can  under- 
stand them,  and  who  know  how  to  apply  their  knowledge.  They  in- 
crease tenfold  the  power  of  work  in  an  able  man,  while,  without  them, 
ordinary  men  can  do  but  little.  I hope  you  will  try  and  assess  all  the 
rent  of  Bunnoo  this  cold  weather.  It  will  save  you  much  future  trouble. 
Assess  low,  leaving  fair  and  liberal  margin  to  the  occupiers  of  the  soil, 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


357 


and  they  will  increase  their  cultivation  and  put  the  revenue  almost  be- 
yond the  reach  of  bad  seasons.  Eschew  middle-men.  They  are  the 
curse  of  the  country  everywhere.  The  land  must  pay  the  revenue  and 
feed  them,  as  well  as  support  the  occupiers.  With  a light  assessment, 
equally  distributed  over  the  village  lands,  half  your  labour  will  cease,  and 
you  will  have  full  time  to  devote  to  police  arrangements. 

Yours  sincerely, 

John  Lawrence. 

How  well  the  promise  that  he  would  support  Nicholson  in 
all  his  labours  was  kept,  is  evidenced  by  some  hundreds  of  let- 
ters which  passed  between  the  two  men,  and  by  the  whole  of 
their  subsequent  history.  James  Abbott,  indeed,  did  leave  the 
Punjab,  to  the  relief,  perhaps,  of  his  immediate  superiors — 
Mackeson  and  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  had  found  him  somewhat 
impracticable  and  wayward — but  to  the  deep  regret  of  the  wild 
inhabitants  of  Huzara,  who  regarded  him  as  a father,  and  with 
the  warm  appreciation  of  what  was  good  and  great  in  him  (and 
there  was  very  much  that  was  both  good  and  great  in  him)  on 
the  part  of  John  Lawrence.  ‘ He  is  a right  good  fellow,’  said 
the  Chief  Commissioner,  ‘with  ability  of  a high  order.’  It 
should  be  added  that  his  departure  had  been  arranged  for  be- 
fore the  abolition  of  the  Board,  and  was  in  no  way  due  to  the 
change  of  masters.  Herbert  Edwardes  succeeded  him  in  Hu- 
zara, the  halfway  house,  as  John  Lawrence  pointed  out,  to  the 
much  more  important  post  of  Peshawur — a post  which  he  was 
pre-eminently  the  man  ‘to  have  and  to  hold’  during  the 
troublous  times  that  were  drawing  near.  Hodson,  who  had 
once  been  a friend  of  Henry  Lawrence,  a man  of  great  courage 
and  energy,  but  with  a moral  twist  which  was  to  lead  him  all 
awry,  succeeded  to  the  command  of  the  Guides  in  place  of 
Harry  Lumsden,  who  had  gone  home  on  furlough.  Hathaway 
became  Inspector  of  Prisons  ; Raikes  filled  the  Commissioner- 
ship  of  Lahore,  vacated  by  Barnes,  while  Barnes  went  to  the 
Cis-Sutlej  States  to  take  the  place  of  Edmondstone.  These 
were  the  only  changes  of  importance  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Chief  Commissionership  ; and  thus,  though  there  was  some 
shifting  of  the  parts,  the  actors  in  the  great  drama,  with  one 
important  exception,  remained  the  same.  It  was  a new  act,  or 
a new  scene  ; but  the  play  was  an  old  one,  and  the  plot  re- 
mained unbroken  throughout. 

It  may  also  be  remarked  here  that,  when  once  the  spirit  of 
mutual  antagonism  had  been  removed  by  the  removal  of  his 


358 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-S3 


brother,  John  Lawrence's  policy  in  the  matter  of  jagheers  and 
rent-free  tenures  began  to  gravitate  slightly,  but  sensibly,  to- 
wards that  of  Henry.  Perhaps  the  last  moving  appeal  of  Henry 
Lawrence  on  behalf  of  ‘ those  who  were  down  ’ had  touched  a 
chord  in  his  heart  of  the  existence  of  which  he  may  have  been 
hardly  conscious  before.  But  in  any  case  the  recommenda- 
tions on  the  subject  of  such  tenures — some  sixty  or  seventy 
thousand  of  which  had  not  yet  been  considered — which  were 
made  by  him,  as  Chief  Commissioner,  tended  to  be  more  lib- 
eral in  their  character  than  any  which  he  had  ever  sanctioned 
as  member  of  the  Board.  So  liberal  were  they,  that  they  were 
often  disallowed  by  Government,  and,  at  last,  drew  down  a 
letter  of  rebuke  from  Lord  Dalhousie  himself,  who  appealed 
from  the  John  Lawrence  of  the  present  to  the  John  Lawrence 
of  former  days.  It  must  have  been  one  drop  of  comfort  in 
Henry  Lawrence’s  bitter  cup,  if  he  realised  that  it  was  so. 

In  personal  character  too,  I think  I am  not  wrong  in  saying 
that  John  Lawrence  bore,  henceforward,  a greater  and  con- 
stantly increasing  resemblance  to  his  brother.  Without  losing 
a particle  of  his  energy,  his  independence,  his  zeal,  he  did  lose, 
henceforward,  something  of  his  roughness,  something  of  that 
which  an  outsider,  or  an  opponent,  might  have  put  down  as 
hard  or  harsh.  ‘ The  two  Lawrences,’  says  one  who  knew 
them  intimately  and  appreciated  them  equally,  General  Rey- 
nell  Taylor,  ‘ were  really  very  much  alike  in  character.  They 
each  had  their  own  capabilities  and  virtues,  and,  when  one  of 
them  was  removed  from  the  scene,  the  f rater  superstes  succeed- 
ed to  many  of  the  graces  of  his  lost  brother.’  In  this  sense  it 
is,  I believe,  true  that  the  influence  of  Henry  Lawrence  was 
greater  on  his  brother,  and  was  even  more  felt  throughout  the 
Punjab  Administration  when  he  had  left  the  country  for  ever, 
than  while  he  was  living  and  working  within  it  ; just  as  the 
words,  the  looks,  the  memory  of  the  dead  have  often  a more 
living  influence  on  the  survivors  than  had  all  the  charms  of 
their  personal  presence.  The  memorable  words,  ‘ If  I be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth  I will  draw  all  men  unto  me,’  are  true,  not 
in  their  literal  and  their  original  sense  alone.  They  give  ex- 
pression to  a great  fact  of  human  nature,  which — as  He  who 
uttered  them  would  have  been  the  first  to  point  out — are  true, 
in  their  measure,  of  all  1 1 is  followers,  and,  most  of  all,  of  those 
who  follow  Him  most  closely. 

Throughout  his  future  career  when  any  particularly  knotty 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  359 


question  came  up,  John  Lawrence  would  ask  himself  as  one — 
and  that  not  the  least  important — element  for  his  consideration 
how  his  brother  Henry  would  ha\*e  acted  under  the  circumstan- 
ces. ‘ My  brother  Henry  used  to  say  so  and  so,’  were  words 
which  those  who  knew  him  best,  have  told  me  came  very  fre- 
quently to  his  lips  ; and  only  a few  months  before  his  death, 
when  he  had  just  decided  to  throw  himself  into  the  breach,  in 
the  hope  that  he  might  still  stop  the  iniquity  of  the  Afghan 
war  ; ‘ I believe,’  he  said  pathetically  to  Mrs.  Hart,  the  only 
daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence — ‘ I believe  your  father  would 
have  agreed  with  me  in  what  I am  doing  now.’ 

As  to  his  own  feelings  now  that  he  was  able  to  stand  on  his 
own  foundation,  and  to  get  through  double  the  amount  of  work 
with  less  than  half  the  former  amount  of  worry,  John  Lawrence 
writes  thus  to  the  Governor-General  : — 

I am  infinitely  indebted  for  the  kind  and  handsome  manner  in  which 
my  new  post  has  been  conferred.  The  manner  in  which  the  favour  has 
been  granted  has  added  greatly  to  its  value.  I only  trust  that  I may 
prove  worthy  of  the  distinction.  . . . Whatever  may  be  the  result 

of  the  new  system,  I must  say  that  I feel  no  fears  or  misgivings  on  that 
account.  I have  with  me  some  of  the  very  best  men  whom  the  Civil 
Service  can  produce,  as  Commissioners.  If  any  incentive  to  exertion 
was  wanted,  which  I feel  there  is  not,  it  is  that  the  honour  of  the  whole 
Civil  Service  is,  to  a large  extent,  in  my  hands.  I desire  earnestly  to  show 
what  a man  bred  and  educated  as  a civilian  can  do  in  a new  country. 

To  his  friend  Raikes  he  writes  in  similar  terms.  ‘ We  are 
getting  on  swimmingly.  The  peace  and  comfort  of  the  new 
arrangements  are  almost  too  much  for  one’s  good.  I scarcely 
think  that  I deserve  to  be  so  comfortable.’  It  was  not  that  he 
had  more  leisure,  for,  as  he  tells  one  correspondent,  ‘ his  pen 
was  hardly  ever  out  of  his  hand  and  he  b^gs  another  never  to 
cross  his  letters,  for  he  was  ‘ almost  blind  with  reading  manu- 
script.’ It  is  the  first  indication  that  I have  been  able  to  find 
of  the  calamity  which  was  ultimately  to  overtake  him.  Of 
course  there  were  plenty  of  troubles  to  come,  but  divided  coun- 
sels and  arrears  of  work  were  seldom  to  be  among  them.  In 
one  very  sanguine  moment,  indeed,  he  expresses  his  expectation 
that  under  the  new  system  his  work  will  be  reduced  one-half, 
and  that  he  will  for  the  future  be  able  to  have  more  of  the  lux- 
ury of  thought.  But  this  was  not  a hope  destined  to  be  realised, 
nor  would  he  have  been  a happier  man  if  it  had  been. 


360 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


* To  get  the  pay  of  the  Punjab  officers  raised  to  an  equality 
with  those  of  other  parts  of  India,  and  so  to  remove  a stand- 
ing  grievance,  from  which  they,  if  any  officers  in  India,  de- 
served to  be  free  ; to  instruct — personally  to  instruct,  as  though 
he  had  been  their  immediate  superior — young  and  raw  civilians 
in  the  routine  of  their  duties,  and  so  to  bring  his  personal  in- 
fluence to  bear  upon  them  from  the  very  beginning  of  their 
career;  to  induce  men  who,  like  Nicholson  or  Mackeson  or 
Hodson,  were  essentially  men  of  action,  to  become — what  was 
much  more  difficult  and  still  more  essential  for  good  govern- 
ment— men  of  business  also,  and  to  keep  and  send  in  the  re- 
ports of  their  administration  punctually  ; to  induce  men  who, 
like  Nicholson  again,  or  Edwardes  or  James,  were  before  all 
things  soldiers,  and  whose  notions  of  justice  were  essentially 
military  notions — a short  shrift  or  a quick  delivery — to  adhere 
rigidly  to  the  forms  of  justice  : to  take  care,  for  instance,  that 
even  when  a murderer  was  caught  red-handed  on  the  Trans- 
Indus  frontier  he  should  be  confronted  with  witnesses,  should 
be  allowed  to  summon  them  for  himself,  and  to  have  the  charge, 
the  evidence,  and  the  sentence  carefully  put  on  record  ; to  in- 
duce men  who,  like  Nicholson  once  more,  must  have  been  con- 
scious of  their  unique  powers  of  command  and  of  their  superior 
military  ability,  to  be  ready  always  to  consult  and  to  obey  their 
superior  in  military  rank  ; to  persuade  energetic  military  politi- 
cals, like  Coke,  who  were  always  burning  to  take  part  in  mili- 
tary operations  which  were  going  on,  perhaps,  some  fifty  miles 
from  their  civil  station,  that  the  chief  test  of  a good  officer  was 
his  willingness  always  to  remain  at  his  post  ; to  keep  the  En- 
gineers, with  Robert  Napier  at  their  head,  within  bounds  in 
carrying  out  their  magnificent  works,  and  to  convince  them — 
though  in  this  not  even  he,  much  less  anyone  else,  could  have 
succeeded — that  one  of  the  most  necessary  parts  of  their  public 
duties  was  a strict  and  punctual  preparation  of  their  accounts  ; 
to  correspond  at  great  length,  and  with  infinite  tact,  with  his 
friend  Courtenay,  Private  Secretary  to  the  Governor-General, 
on  important  and  embarrassing  questions  of  State,  for  which  he 
was  gradually  to  prepare  the  ‘ Lord  Sahib’s’  mind,  and  then  put 
them  before  him  for  decision  in  the  fitting  manner  and  at  the 
fitting  time  and  place  ; to  bring  before  the  Governor-General 
himself,  with  judicial  impartiality,  the  conflicting  claims  of 
every  candidate  for  every  important  post  in  the  Punjab  ; to  in- 
duce him,  at  whatever  cost,  to  remove  an  incompetent,  an  un- 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  361 

willing  or  an  unworthy  officer,  on  the  principle  on  which  he 
himself  had  always  acted,  that  it  was  better  that  one  man  should 
die  for  the  people  than  that  a whole  people  should  die  for  one 
man  ; to  suggest  to  overworked  and  overwilling  men,  like  John 
Becher,  the  necessity — a necessity  which  John  Lawrence  cer- 
tainly never  recognised  in  his  own  case — of  sparing  themselves, 
and  to  point  out  the  precise  methods  by  which  they  could  best 
do  so  ; to  help  those  who,  like  Donald  Macleod,  with  the  best 
intentions  and  the  highest  ability,  were  yet,  owing  to  unconquer- 
able idiosyncrasies,  always  hopelessly  in  arrears,  by  actually 
himself  going  through  hundreds  of  their  papers  and  clearing 
them  off ; to  protect  the  natives  generally,  particularly  the  native 
soldiers,  from  all  ill-treatment,  whether  of  a blow,  a word,  or  a 
contemptuous  gesture  from  officers  who  occasionally,  even  in 
the  Punjab,  dared  to  forget  that  difference  of  colour  or  of  race 
implied  only  an  increase  of  moral  responsibility  ; to  order  or 
counter-order,  or  keep  within  the  limits  of  justice  and  of  moder- 
ation,the  retaliatory  expeditions  which  the  raids  of  thewild  tribes 
upon  our  frontier,  after  long  forbearance  on  our  part,  often 
rendered  inevitable  ; to  keep  down,  in  view  of  the  paramount 
necessity,  in  so  poor  a country,  of  economy,  the  demands  for 
additional  assistants  which  crowded  upon  him  from  the  Com- 
missioners and  Deputy-Commissioners  as  they  found  their  work 
growing  under  their  hands  ; to  decline  civilly,  but  decidedly, 
the  request  of  wives  for  their  husbands,  or  of  mothers  for  their 
sons,  that  he  would  give  them  appointments  for  which  they 
were  not  competent ; to  inculcate  upon  his  subordinates  his  own 
salutary  horror  of  jobs  of  every  degree  and  every  description, 
and  to  keep  them  as  far  as  possible — as  he  had  always  kept 
himself  till  his  health  had  broken  down  and  the  doctors  told 
him  that  a change  in  his  habits  was  essential  to  his  stay  in 
India — from  gravitating,  if  I may  so  say,  towards  the  hills,  those 
delectable  temptations,  as  he  regarded  them,  to  the  neglect  of 
work  and  duty ; — these  were  some  of  the  subjects,  perhaps  a 
tithe  of  the  whole,  with  which  the  correspondence  of  the  first 
few  months  shows  he  had  to  deal,  and  they  form,  I think,  a fair 
sample  of  his  whole  work  and  responsibilities  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner. 

His  correspondence  with  Lord  Dalhousie  and  with  John 
Nicholson  would  each  fill  a volume,  and  a volume  replete  with 
historical  as  well  as  biographical  interest.  That  with  Lord  Dal- 
housie gives,  perhaps,  a higher  idea,  as  a whole,  than  any  other 


362 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


of  his  loyalty  and  his  manly  frankness,  of  his  insight  and  his 
statesmanlike  breadth  of  view  ; that  with  Nicholson,  of  his  pru- 
dence and  his  patience,  of  his  forbearance  and  his  magnanimity 
— in  a word,  of  his  determination,  cost  him  what  it  might,  to 
retain  in  the  Punjab  a man  whom,  stiff-necked  and  masterful 
as  he  was,  he  recognised  as  a commanding  genius,  and  as  a 
single-hearted  and  devoted  public  servant.  The  one  set  of  let- 
ters shows  John  Lawrence’s  readiness  to  obey,  the  other  his 
claims  to  command.  The  one  gives  the  most  convincing  testi- 
mony to  the  powers  of  his  head,  the  other  to  the  still  more 
sterling  qualities  of  his  heart. 

It  is  difficult,  by  any  mere  selection  from  John  Lawrence’s 
correspondence,  to  give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  way  in  which 
he  dealt  whith  such  questions  as  I have  enumerated  ; and  I 
have  therefore  put  into  the  first  place  the  judgment  which  I 
have  myself  been  led  to  form  from  a minute  study  of  them  as  a 
whole.  I proceed,  however,  to  give  a few  extracts  which,  if 
they  do  not  go  very  far,  go  at  least  some  way  towards  justify- 
ing and  illustrating  what  I have  said. 

A rather  inexperienced,  but  energetic  and  promising,  civilian, 
named  Simson,  had  been  thrown  suddenly  on  a district  which  had 
been  sadly  neglected  by  his  predecessor  ; and,  finding  himself  in 
great  difficulties,  frequently  applied  direct  to  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner for  help.  The  Chief  Commissioner  thus  responded  : — 

Work  away  as  hard  as  you  can,  and  get  all  things  into  order.  If  you 
succeed  you  will  establish  a claim  to  early  promotion  which  cannot  be 
overlooked,  and  which,  as  far  as  I go,  shall  not  be  passed  over.  I made 
my  fortune,  I consider,  by  being  placed,  in  1834,  in  a district  in  a state 
similar  to  Leia,  in  which  I worked  for  two  years,  morning,  noon,  and 
night,  and  after  all  was  superseded!  Nevertheless,  all  my  prosperity 
dates  from  that  time.  Your  charge  of  Leia  will  prove  a similar  one  in 
your  career.  ...  I would  throw  my  strength  into  putting  things 
straight  for  the  future,  and  leave  off  complaints  of  the  past,  as  much  as 
possible,  weeding  out  bad  officials,  and  ihaking  an  example  in  a summary 
but  legal  way  here  and  there.  . . . Without  being  too  formal  and 

technical,  put  on  record  all  that  occurs,  and  be  careful  that  you  act  in 
accordance  with  law  and  justice.  . . . You  may  give  such  reductions 

as  you  may  consider  fair  and  reasonable.  Don’t  give  it  merely  because 
people  scream,  but  where  it  is  necessary.  Better  give  a little  too  much 
than  too  little  ; it  will  be  true  economy  in  the  end. 

Nicholson,  Simson’s  neighbour  at  Bnnnoo,  was  not  disposed 
to  take  his  complaints  and  difficulties  in  quite  such  good  part, 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  363 


and  wrote  to  the  Chief  Commissioner  to  that  effect.  The 
Chief  Commissioner’s  answer  was  to  the  point.  4 Simson  is 
doubtless  a bit  of  a screamer ; but  the  people  scream  even 
louder  than  he  does  against  the  bad  system  that  has  prevailed 
there.’ 

The  very  high  opinion  which  John  Lawrence  had  formed  of 
Nicholson  from  the  earliest  times,  and  retained  to  the  end,  in 
spite  of  frequent  trials  of  strength,  will  come  out  abundantly  in 
the  sequel.  But  the  following  will  give  some  idea  of  one  of  the 
many  difficulties  which  he  had  in  dealing  with  him. 

I consent  to  an  expedition  against  the  Sheoranis,  who  have  lately 
burnt  and  plundered  one  of  our  villages.  I wish,  however,  that  the  Bri- 
gadier (Hodgson)  should  approve  and  concur  in  the  necessity  of  the  ex- 
pedition, and  that  either  he  or  Fitzgerald  should  command.  I do  not 
wish  that  either  you  or  Coke  should  go  into  the  hills  unless  no  other 
equally  efficient  officer  is  available.  As  district  officers,  it  is  desirable 
that  you  both  remain  in  your  district ; most  mischievous  results  might 
ensue  if  either  of  you  were  killed  or  wounded  ; for  the  whole  of  the  ad- 
ministration would  be  hampered. 

A thoroughly  characteristic  remark  this,  and  one  which  the 
recipient  may,  very  possibly,  at  the  time  have  not  altogether 
appreciated ! A man  is  seldom  able  to  contemplate  his  own 
wounds  or  death  simply  from  .the  point  of  view  in  which  they 
may  effect  the  government  of  the  day,  and  he  may  not  unnatur- 
ally resent  the  head  of  that  government  appearing  to  do  so 
either.  But  it  was  John  Lawrence’s  way  always  to  put  public 
considerations  in  the  front,  leaving  private  considerations,  as 
they  are  generally  able  to  do,  to  assert  themselves  ; and  could 
Nicholson  have  seen  the  terms  in  which  this  apparently  un- 
compromising disciplinarian  was  even  then  writing  to  Lord 
Dalhousie  1 and  others  about  his  vast  capacities  and  his  intrin- 
sic worth,  still  more  could  he  have  foreseen  the  strong  personal 
regard,  nay,  the  enthusiastic  admiration,  which,  years  after- 
wards, when  the  news  came — the  news  of  a lifetime — that  Del- 
hi had  fallen,  threw  all  joy  into  the  background,  and  forced 
tears  from  the  eyes  of  his  chief,  because,  with  the  news  of 


1 E.g.  on  August  31,  1853  : ‘ I look  on  Major  Nicholson  as  the  best  district  officer 
on  the  frontier.  He  possesses  great  courage,  much  force  of  character,  and  is  at  the 
same  time  shrewd  and  intelligent.  He  is  well  worth  the  wing  of  a regiment  on  the 
border ; for  his  prestige  with  the  people,  both  on  the  hills  and  plains,  is  very  great. 
He  is  also  a very  fair  civil  officer,  and  has  done  a good  deal  to  put  things  straight  in 
his  district. 


3^4 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


victory,  came,  also,  the  news  that  he  was  dead, — he  would  have 
been  able  to  read  between  the  lines  of  this  and  similar  letters, 
and  would,  perchance,  have  loved  the  man  almost  as  much  as 
he  admired  the  ruler. 

Nicholson’s  answer  on  this  occasion  does  not  seem  to  have 
removed  the  misgivings  of  his  chief,  that  he  might  be  induced 
by  a little  extra  provocation  to  go  on  an  expedition  on  his  own 
account ; and  John  Lawrence  writes  to  him  again,  thus  : — 

I shall  be  very  glad  if  you  punish  the  Sheoranis,  but  get  Hodgson  to 
agree  in  your  measures.  Don’t  think  that  I wish  you  to  go  into  the  hills 
with  too  small  a force  ; on  no  account  risk  anything  in  this  way.  . . . 

Pray  report  officially  all  incursions.  I shall  get  into  trouble  if  you  don’t. 
The  Governor-General  insists  on  knowing  all  that  goes  on,  and  not  un- 
reasonably ; but  I can’t  tell  him  this  if  I don’t  hear  details. 

A few  days  later  the  danger  still  seemed  imminent. 

If  you  must  go  into  the  hills,  by  all  means  try  and  have  the  Brigadier 
in  favour  of  it.  It  will  not  do  to  go  against  his  opinion.  Be  he  what  he 
may  as  Brigadier,  his  opposition  would  be  fatal  if  aught  went  wrong  ; so 
pray  try  and  have  him  in  favour  of  the  scheme,  and  don’t  go  without  his 
consent.  Even  success  would  not  justify  your  doing  it.  If  he  thinks 
you  should  have  more  troops,  get  him  to  apply  to  Mooltan  for  a corps, 
and  say  I authorise  his  doing  so.  Don’t  suppose  that  I fear  the  respon- 
sibility of  allowing  you  to  go  into  the  hills.  I shall  willingly  take  upon 
myself  that  responsibility,  but  it  seems  essential  that  the  Brigadier  who 
commands  on  the  frontier  should  be  in  favour  of  the  measure.  Govern- 
ment gave  the  Board,  and  has  given  me  the  power  to  authorise  offensive 
measures  when  absolutely  necessary ; but  they  would  not  support  us  if 
aught  went  wrong  and  we  had  set  aside  the  Brigadier’s  opinions,  so  pray 
recollect  this. 

And  again,  a few  days  later,  he  writes  : — 

I have  received  your  letters,  public  and  private,  regarding  the  Sheo- 
rani  business,  and  Hodgson’s  delay  in  attacking  them.  I am  far  from 
saying  that  you  were  not  correct  in  urging  an  immediate  attack.  But  as 
Hodgson  was  averse  to  do  this,  and  the  matter  was  a purely  military  one, 
he  is  the  man  to  decide  the  question.  After  once  giving  my  opinion  on 
the  matter,  I would  not  do  more.  It  is  of  much  more  importance  that 
you  should  pull  well  together  than  that  this  or  that  plan  should  be  fol- 
lowed. 

Well  might  Lord  Dalhousie  write:  ‘I  know  that  Nicholson 
is  a first-rate  guerilla  leader  ; but  I don’t  want  a guerilla  policy.’ 
A guerilla  policy  it  is  likely  enough  there  would  have  been,  all 


1852—53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  3^5 

along  the  five  hundred  miles  of  frontier,  under  such  provoca- 
tion as  our  frontier  officers  were  constantly  receiving,  had  there 
been  a less  powerful  and,  at  the  same  time,  a less  patient  ruler 
than  John  Lawrence  at  the  helm.  It  need  only  be  added  that 
the  expedition  did  come  off  at  last,  that  it  was  confined  within 
reasonable  limits,  that  it  effected  its  purpose,  and,  thanks  to 
John  Lawrence’s  efforts,  caused  no  breach  between  the  Briga- 
dier and  his  impetuous  subordinate. 

Robert  Napier,  with  his  magnificent  ideas  and  his  regard- 
lessness of  expense,  was  a help  and  a difficulty  of  a somewhat 
similar  kind.  Everything  he  did  was  well — probably  it  could 
not  have  been  better — done.  Like  Nicholson,  he  had  come 
into  the  Punjab  under  the  auspices  of  Henry  Lawrence  ; and 
when  John,  ‘the  member  of  the  Board,’  as  he  described  him- 
self, * who  was  for  economy,  even  to  frugality,  succeeded  to 
his  brother’s  place,  it  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  some 
friendly  passages  of  arms  between  them.  Napier,  conscious, 
no  doubt,  of  his  great  powers,  and  as  fond  of  work  almost  as 
John  himself,  wished — as  it  was  only  natural  that  he  should — that 
as  many  public  works  as  possible  should  be  started  and  com- 
pleted in  the  best  possible  way  and  in  the  shortest  possible 
time.  The  Chief  Commissioner,  who  was  responsible  for  the 
well-being  of  the  province  as  a whole,  and  therefore  for  its 
solvency,  was  compelled  to  put  the  drag  on  ; to  ask  that  no 
new  works  should  be  begun  before  the  old  were  completed  ; 
that  all  new  works  should  be  duly  authorised  ; and,  above  all, 
that  progress-reports,  and  accounts  should  be  sent  in  as  regu- 
larly as  possible.  I am  bound  to  say  that  in  this  he  only  very 
partially  succeeded,  and  perhaps  it  was  not  altogether  bad  for 
the  State  that  it  was  so.  The  pressure  he  put  upon  Napier 
was,  by  no  means,  entirely  voluntary  on  his  part.  It  is  amus- 
ing, in  the  mass  of  correspondence  before  me,  to  note  how  the 
Directors  were  continually  putting  economical  pressure  upon 
Lord  Dalhousie,  which  he  handed  to  John  Lawrence,  which 
he,  knowing  his  man,  handed  on  with  interest  to  Napier,  which 
he,  also  knowing  his  men,  after  a good  deal  of  passive  resist- 
ance, and  probably  with  large  reductions,  handed,  in  turn,  to 
his  subordinates.  It  was  the  case  of  the  water  which  would  not 
quench  the  fire,  and  the  fire  which  would  not  burn  the  rope, 
and  the  rope  which  would  not  hang  the  man  ! 

Napier’s  subordinates — Alexander  Taylor,  for  instance,  who 
was  in  charge  of  the  Peshawur  Road,  and  has  described  the 


366 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


state  of  things  to  me — were  employed  every  day  and  all  day  on 
the  great  works  on  which  they  were  engaged,  and  had  no  time, 
or  fancied  they  had  none,  to  send  in  elaborate  reports  to  their 
chief,  which. he  might  then  have  transmitted  to  John  Lawrence 
in  good  time  for  their  publication  in  the  biennial  ‘ Punjab  Re- 
ports,’ or  for  the  quieting  of  the  financial  anxieties  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General. The  Engineers  were  thus  a constant,  if  not  an 
involuntary,  source  of  trouble  to  the  Chief  Commissioner,  who 
used  to  tell  them  humorously,  that  they  ‘could  not  open  their 
mouths  without  taking  in  a lac  of  rupees.’  But,  as  I have  said, 
the  system  did  not  work  so  badly  for  the  State,  and  it  certainly 
did  not  affect  the  respect  and  regard  of  John  Lawrence  for 
Napier.  It  was  at  John  Lawrence’s  earnest  request,  as  well  as 
by  the  Governor-General’s  own  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
that  Napier  was  appointed  Chief  Engineer  of  the  Punjab  in 
1854.  ‘ I am  very  glad,’  said  John  Lawrence  on  May  6,  1854, 

‘that  the  Governor-General  has  given  Napier  the  Chief  Engi- 
neership.  He  is  a fine  fellow,  and  there  cannot  be  a question 
that  he  is  the  man  who  should  get  it.  The  work  he  has  done 
since  annexation  is  enormous,  and  would  have  killed  many 
men.’  And  years  afterwards,  when  the  Abyssinian  war  was  in 
prospect,  and  John  Lawrence  was  asked  whom  he  would  send 
as  Commander-in-Chief,  ‘So-and-so  would  do,’  he  said,  ‘ pretty 
well  ; but,  if  you  want  the  thing  thoroughly  well  done  ’ — and 
he  doubtless  thought,  as  he  spoke,  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road 
and  the  Bari  Doab  Canal — ‘go  to  Napier.’ 

A few  more  extracts  from  John  Lawrence’s  letters  during 
the  first  year  of  his  Chief  Commissionership,  will  give  some 
idea  of  the  way  in  which  he  rebuked  the  wrong-doer,  helped 
the  willing  or  the  ill-instructed,  tried  to  keep  down  extrava- 
gance, and  got  rid  of  inefficient  officers. 

To  Captain  Coke,  an  officer  of  much  energy  and  ability,  but 
rather  new  to  civil  work,  and  then  in  charge  of  Kohat,  he 
writes,  on  March  20,  1853  : — 

You  must  not  be  annoyed  at  not  being  allowed  to  go  with  your  regi- 
ment to  a distance  from  Kohat.  It  is  very  natural,  and  very  soldier- 
like, that  you  should  wish  to  do  it.  But  it  is  my  duty  to  look  to  the 
public  weal,  and  this  requires  that  you  should  be  at  Kohat,  above  all 
things,  at  the  time  when  it  has  been  weakened  by  the  absence  of  a por- 
tion of  its  force.  I look  on  it  that  the  absence  of  the  district  officer  from 
Kohat  or  Bunnoo  is  equal  to  the  absence  of  an  extra  wing  of  infantry. 
Besides,  in  your  absence,  how  is  the  civil  work  to  be  carried  on  ? If 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  3 67 

you  are  killed  or  wounded,  who  is  to  supply  your  place  ? . . . Take 

my  advice  : get  a copy  of  the  ‘ Accountant’s  Manual,’  and  study  it  for 
half-an-hour  a week,  and  get  a general  idea  of  its  contents.  Afterwards, 
when  anything  bothers  you,  turn  to  the  Manual,  or  make  your  clerk  do 
so,  and  in  three  months  you  will  get  your  office  into  order,  and  in  six 
months  you  will  be  as  au  fait  at  all  these  matters  as  Mr.  Grant  himself. 
Unless  you  do  this  you  will  always  be  in  trouble,  and  some  day  be  put 
down  as  incompetent.  If  you  are  to  be  a civil  officer  you  must  master 
civil  details.  Don’t  be  annoyed  at  my  plain  mode  of  dealing  with 
the  matter.  It  is  the  best  way  to  put  the  thing  right.  You  must  serve 
an  apprenticeship  in  these  things.  Don’t  let  Mackeson  rest  until  he 
passes,  or  gets  passed,  all  your  bills.  I will  help  you  ; but  I can  only  do 
so  thoroughly  when  you  come  up  in  an  official  form.  ...  I am  ready 
to  help  you  by  showing  you  how  to  go  about  things.  It  is  a pity  that 
your  Commissioner  does  not  do  this  himself. 

To  Captain on  March  21,  he  writes  : 

I think  it  right  to  tell  you  that  I hear  the  Sirdars  of  your  district  ex- 
press a good  deal  of  discontent  with  your  administration.  I understand 
they  complain  much  of  your  spies,  informers,  and  omlah  (native  staff). 
I beg  you  will  look  to  this.  We  should  all  try  to  do  our  duty  without 
giving  cause  of  offence.  There  is  no  machinery  so  difficult  to  manage 
as  that  of  espionage. 

On  July  17  he  writes  to  Nicholson  : — 

681  Rupees  per  mensem  is,  doubtless,  no  great  thing  in  itself,  but  it  is 
pot  a solitary  case.  Our  pensions  and  pay  have  eaten  up  the  larger  por- 
tion of  the  revenues  of  the  Punjab  already,  and  there  is  seldom  a day 
that  more  claims  don’t  come  up.  The  consequence  is  that  .good  and 
useful  projects  are  refused  or  stinted  for  finance  considerations.  You 
may,  perhaps,  not  care  for  such  considerations,  like  many  other  of  our 
friends  ; but  I am  bound  to  do  so.  Sooner  or  later  that  consideration 
predominates  over  all  others. 

I see  the  poor  Court  of  Directors  has  gone  smash  because  we  chucked 
away  fifteen  millions  in  the  Afghan  war,  and  could  not  afford  the  mate- 
rial improvements  India  required.  Don’t  send  up  any  more  men  to  be 
hanged  direct,  unless  the  case  is  very  urgent ; and  when  you  do,  send 
an  abstract  of  the  evidence  in  English,  and  send  it  through  the  Commis- 
sioner. 

Here  is  one  of  many  letters  which  touch  on  a subject  on 
which  he  felt  very  strongly — the  proper  treatment  of  the  na- 
tives by  English  officers.  There  had  been  serious  discontent, 
approaching  to  mutiny,  in  the  Third  Sikh  Local  Infantry  in 


368 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


Huzara  ; and  inquiry  showed  that,  if  the  men  were  somewhat 
to  blame,  the  commanding  officer  was  much  more  so.  Accord- 
ingly,  John  Lawrence  writes  thus  to  Lord  Dalhousie  : — 

Captain did  not  succeed  to  an  easy  charge  ; certainly  not  to 

such  an  orderly  and  well-disciplined  corps  as  the  First  Infantry  Locals. 
But  it  appears  evident  to  me  that  he  has  not  the  qualities  which  fit  an 
officer  for  so  important  and  delicate  a trust  as  the  command  of  an  Irreg- 
ular Corps.  It  is  notorious  that  some  of  our  European  officers  cannot 
speak  civilly  to  a native  of  India.  They  cannot  restrain  themselves  from 
giving  vent  to  gross  abuse,  when  in  any  way  excited,  if  the  party  has  a 

black  face.  Captain seems  to  be  one  of  this  class.  Edwardes, 

in  his  private  note,  admits  that  ‘ he  slangs  the  men  dreadfully.’  Is  it 
likely  that  he  habitually  thus  addressed  the  men,  and  was  more  consid- 
erate with  the  native  officers  ? The  natives  of  all  classes,  though  they 
may  not  show  it,  are  particularly  sensitive  on  this  point.  A kindly  free 
manner,  a soft  tone,  a general  accessibility  in  their  superiors,  are  the 
qualities  which  win  their  attachment,  perhaps  even  more  than  imparti- 
ality and  a high  sense  of  honour. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  present  system  of  officering  irreg- 
ular corps  is  the  facility  which  exists  of  getting  rid  of  incapable  officers 
by  sending  them  back  to  their  own  regiments.  I strongly  recommend 
that  this  be  done  to  Captain . It  is  impossible  to  place  any  confi- 

dence in  his  judgment,  temper,  or  firmness. 

He  recurs  to  the  same  subject  in  a letter  to  Lord  Dalhousie’s 
private  secretary  : — 

You  will  see  what  I say  of  the  Third  Sikhs.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to 

disband  them.  Get  rid  of  the  viufsids  (mischievous  fellows),  and  send 

to  his  corps  and  put  areal  soldier  in  his  room,  and  all  will  come  straight. 
There  are  good  soldiers  in  the  Company’s  army,  and  while  they  are  to  be 

had,  such  a man  as should  never  have  been  selected.  I fear  you  will 

think  me  an  iron-hearted  fellow  ; but  when  I see  the  evils  which  arise 
from  using  incompetent  tools,  I think  we  cannot  be  too  careful — first,  in 
our  selections,  and  secondly,  in  getting  rid  of  any  man  who  proves  that 
he  is  unfit  for  his  work.  However  careful  we  may  be,  some  mistakes 
must  be  made.  The  sooner  they  are  corrected  the  better.  Mercy  to  in- 
dividuals is  cruelty  to  the  mass  and  ruination  to  the  public  service.  I 

think  if is  not  removed  it  will  be  a grave  mistake.  I have  no  idea 

of  flooring  the  native  officers  and  sparing  the  English  ones.  One  would 
think  that  the  former  got  all  the  honour  and  glory,  and  the  European 
officers  nothing,  for  directly  there  comes  a rumpus,  all  blame  is  thrown 
upon  the  natives. 

It  only  remains  to  be  added  that  the  Chief  Commissioner’s 
remonstrances  were  successful,  and  that  the  regiment,  placed 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  369 


under  a new  commanding  officer,  was  reported  within  a few 
months  as  being  in  excellent  order,  and  as  having  volunteered 
for  service  wherever  they  might  be  required  in  any  quarter  of 
the  world. 

The  taking  or  the  offering  of  a bribe  has  happily  been  a rare 
occurrence  in  the  history  of  British  India,  but  one  such  case 
actually  occurred  in  the  Punjab.  The  following  is  written  to 
the  culprit : — 


July  16,  1853. 

I received  your  note  of  the  14th,  and  regret  I am  unable  to  give  it  any 
other  public  answer  than  I have  done.  I really  do  not  know  what  to 
recommend,  and  yet  I do  not  like  to  say  nothing  to  help  you.  It  strikes 
me  that  the  simplest  course  is  for  you  to  write  to  Mr.  J.  P.  Grant,  and 
throw  yourself  on  the  Governor-General’s  mercy  ; admit  that  you  were 
a fool  and  a madman,  and  say  you  are  ready  to  suffer  the  penalty  of 
your  fault.  I see  not  that  you  can  do  otherwise  to  any  advantage. 

This  is  a very  sad  business.  I mean  not  to  reproach  you  in  your  afflic- 
tion, but  in  the  whole  course  of  my  service,  I never  knew  a case  where  a 
civilian  gave  or  received  a bribe.  Why  did  you  not  write  and  ask  me 
about  your  promotion  ? 

It  is  useless  my  trying  to  help  you.  There  is  no  remedy  for  the  error 
you  have  committed  other  than  to  bear  the  penalty  and  express  your 
contrition. 

To  his  great  friend  John  Becher  of  the  Engineers,  who  had 
only  just  taken  to  civil  work,  he  writes  in  a strain  which  is 
so  unlike  his  usual  one,  bidding  him  not  to  do  more,  but 
to  be  content  with  less  work,  that  I quote  a sentence  or  two 
from  it. 


Umritsur  : April  22,  1853. 

I had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  yours  of  the  20th.  I should  have  re- 
joiced to  have  seen  you,  as  we  passed  through,  but  I understand  and 
appreciate  your  motives  in  not  coming.  I am  afraid  you  have  a weary 
life  of  it  at  Buttala,  and  that  the  work  presses  heavily  on  you.  . . . 

Don’t  overdo  the  thing  ; don’t  work  too  hard.  Divide  your  work,  and 
make  all  do  their  share. 

Becher  was  in  time  transferred  to  Huzara,  and  proved  a worthy 
successor  there  of  James  Abbott  and  of  Herbert  Edwardes.  He 
was  still  much  oppressed  by  his  work,  and,  knowing  alike  his 
willingness  and  his  ability,  his  chief  writes  in  much  the  same 
strain,  hoping  to  suggest  a remedy.  His  incidental  remarks  on 
his  own  powers  of  work  are  of  biographical  interest. 

Vol.  I. — 24 


370 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


March  16,  1854. 

I cannot  understand  how  two  men  cannot  do  the  Huzara  work  with 
ease.  I know  you  work  hard,  perhaps  more  so  than  is  necessary,  cer- 
tainly more  than  is  good  for  you ; but  I cannot  understand  how  it  happens 
that  you  do  not  make  more  way.  So  far  from  marching  about  delaying 
my  work,  I have  always  found  it  was  the  best  time  for  getting  through 
anything  like  arrears.  When  I was  a district  officer,  I was,  at  least,  six 
months  of  the  year  under  canvas,  and  found  that  I got  through  every- 
thing and  had  time  for  everything.  I made  settlements,  decided  bound- 
aries, got  over  maafi (rent-free  holdings)  and  foujdari  (magisterial  cases). 
I suspect  that  you  want  confidence  in  yourself,  and,  though  you  are 
always  grinding,  that  you  procrastinate  when  you  come  to  the  actual  de- 
cision. Abbott  may  have  left  you  arrears  which  I wot  not  of,  or  it  may 
be  that  Pearce  does  not  take  his  share.  There  must  be  a hitch  some- 
where. Huzara  is  a mountainous  country,  thinly  peopled,  with  little 
commerce.  How  there  can  be  much  work  in  such  a place  passes  my 
comprehension. 

I have  been  literally  but  truly  on  the  move  ever  since  the  end  of 
August,  and  my  office  was  never  in  better  order  than  at  present.  I do 
not  write  this  to  glorify  myself  or  to  underrate  your  labours,  but  that 
you  may  turn  the  matter  over  in  your  mind,  and  discover  where  the  mis- 
take lies.  Nicholson  is  here.  He  is  a first-rate  ‘ warden  of  the  marches.’ 
The  district  is  in  capital  order. 

To  complete  this  account  of  John  Lawrence’s  treatment  of 
his  subordinates  during  the  early  part  of  his  Chief  Commis- 
sionership,  I submit  here  a trenchant  but  kindly  criticism  of 
the  man  whom  perhaps  he  loved  more  than  any  man  living — 
one  who  was  soon  to  be  in  close  connection  with  him  as  ‘ Fi- 
nancial Commissioner  ’ in  Edmondstone’s  place,  was  to  work  on 
with  him  in  perfect  harmony  throughout  the  Mutiny,  and  after- 
wards, when  he  was  Viceroy,  was  to  be  recommended  by  him 
for  the  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  the  Punjab  itself — the  late 
Sir  Donald  Macleod.  John  Lawrence  loved  him  for  his  good- 
ness, and,  when  he  was  already  overwhelmed  with  work,  would 
gladly  take  over  any  number  of  his  papers,  and  go  through 
them  himself.  The  description  is  lifelike,  and  by  no  one 
would  it  have  been  more  enjoyed,  or  its  truthfulness  more 
readily  acknowledged,  than  by  Macleod  himself. 

August  i,  1853. 

Dear  Edwardes, — I have  known  Donald  Macleod  for  twenty-five 
years,  and  appreciate  his  real  worth  and  merit  as  much  as  any  man  can 
do.  Morally  and  intellectually  he  has  no  superior  in  the  Punjab,  per- 
haps no  equal.  But,  as  an  administrator,  he  is  behind  Edmondstonc, 
Raikes,  and  even  Barnes.  He  is  too  fond  of  polishing,  and  his  execu- 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


371 


tion  is  not  equal  to  his  designs.  He  wastes  much  time  on  unimportant 
matters.  He  spends  as  much  time  on  a petty  case  as  on  an  important 
one.  His  Commissionership  has  not  fair  and  honest  work  for  a man  of 
ability  and  knowledge  for  six  hours  a day.  I know  it,  for  I was  Com- 
missioner there  for  three  years  when  it  had  to  be  licked  into  shape.  It 
is  useless  saying  that  we  must  choose  between  quality  and  quantity.  We 
must  have  both,  or  the  result  is  a failure.  There  are  certain  things  to 
be  done  in  an  official  berth,  and  a certain  time  to  do  them  in.  A good 
and  efficient  administrator  will  so  distribute  his  time  as  to  do  them  all. 
He  will  economise  when  it  can  be  done  safely,  and  throw  in  his  power 
when  it  is  wanted.  Edmondstone  has  not  the  intellect  of  Donald  ; he 
has  not  his  knowledge  of  the  customs  and  habits  of  the  people  ; but,  by 
order  and  economy  of  time,  joined  to  an  iron  constitution,  he  did  treble 
the  work  that  Donald  does  ; and,  on  the  whole,  he  did  it  better.  He 
would  not  do  a given  case  so  well  perhaps,  but  he  would  do  a hundred 
while  the  other  would  do  ten,  and  he  would  do  them  rightly.  Donald 
spends  half  the  day  writing  elegant  demi-official  chits.  I spin  off  a dozen 
in  a day,  and  they  don’t  take  an  hour.  They  may  want  the  elegant  turn  he 
gives  to  his,  but  they  are  to  the  point  and  do  all  that  is  necessary.  Ed- 
mondstone, Raikes,  and  Barnes  have  more  settlements  than  Macleod. 
The  revenues  of  the  country  cannot  afford  more  men.  We  must  either 
reduce  the  salaries,  and  thus  effect  a saving  to  pay  for  more  men,  or  we 
must  get  more  work  out  of  our  Donalds.  An  assistant  is  of  little  or  no 
use  to  a really  efficient  Commissioner.  The  mere  drudgery  of  the 
office  should  be  done  by  the  head  clerk,  who  gets  the  pay  of  an  educated 

man.  No  practical  man  would  have  kept  such  a man  as for  his 

head  clerk  for  a month.  Donald  moans,  but  retains  him.  At  this 
moment  he  has  not  sent  up  any  report  of  his  administration  for  the  past 
three  years,  and  has  several  hundred  appeals  standing  over,  some  as 
long  as  four  years.  He  has  men  under  trial  in  jail  for  upwards  of  a year. 
‘Bis  dat  qui  cito  dat’  is  a good  motto  in  administration.  Donald  is  not 
fit  for  a new  country  ; he  has,  with  all  his  virtues,  radical  defects.  I see 
this,  who  love  the  man  ; what  more  can  I say  ? 

The  only  events  in  the  Punjab  or  its  dependencies  which 
involved  any  possible  political  complications  during  the  first 
year  or  two  of  John  Lawrence’s  Chief  Commissionership,  were 
a contest  for  the  succession  in  the  adjoining  State  of  Bahawul- 
pore,  and  the  murder  of  Mackeson  at  Peshawur.  How  did  he 
deal  with  them  ? 

Bahawulpore  is  an  extensive  tract  of  country  to  the  south  of 
the  Sutlej,  between  the  Punjab  and  Rajpootana,  which,  so  far 
back  as  1809,  had  acknowledged  British  supremacy,  but  had 
always  retained  its  internal  independence.  The  Nawab,  who 
died  at  the  end  of  1852,  had  done  us  good  service  in  the  second 
Sikh  war,  and  it  was  by  his  special  request  that  we  recognised 


3 72 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


the  succession  of  his  third  son  Saadut  Khan,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  eldest,  Haji  Khan.  The  elder  brother,  thanks,  doubtless, 
to  the  humanity  encouraged  by  the  British  connection,  was 
saved  from  the  fate  which  he  would  have  suffered  under  simi- 
lar circumstances,  at  any  purely  native  court,  and  was  only 
confined  in  prison.  He  soon  escaped,  and  a civil  war  followed. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  was  at  first  disposed  to  prevent  dis- 
turbances which  would,  probably,  spread  to  the  adjoining  dis- 
tricts of  the  Punjab,  by  giving  help  to  the  younger  brother  ; 
but,  finding  that  the  Daoudputras,  the  dominant  clan  in  the 
country,  were  in  favour  of  the  elder,  wisely  determined,  with 
Lord  Dalhousie’s  advice,  to  leave  the  matter  to  settle  itself — as 
it  usually  does  in  the  East — by  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  The 
elder  brother  gained  the  day  ; and  the  Chief  Commissioner 
then  stepped  in,  on  the  plea  of  humanity  alone,  negotiated  the 
release  of  the  younger  brother  from  prison  and  from  death, 
and  gave  him  an  asylum  at  Lahore,  on  the  understanding  that 
he  was  never  to  revive  his  claims. 

It  was  a trifling  episode,  but  was  managed  with  skill,  and  in- 
volved, as  I am  inclined  to  think,  important  consequences ; for 
it  was  the  first  instance  of  that  wise  non-interference  with  the 
internal  affairs  of  neighbouring  States  which  henceforward  be- 
came a ruling  principle  of  John  Lawrence’s  policy,  and  to  which 
he  consistently  adhered,  even  when,  as  in  the  case  of  Shere  Ali, 
and  the  rival  claimants  to  the  Ameership  of  Afghanistan,  it  ex- 
posed him  to  the  easy  ridicule  and  the  persistent  hostility  of 
those  who  would  secure,  or  endanger,  our  Indian  frontier  by  a 
series  of  aggressive  or  unnecessary  wars  beyond  it.  By  non- 
interference in  this  instance  he  had  avoided  a war  and  the  still 
worse  evil  of  forcing  a ruler  on  unwilling  subjects.  In  how 
many  frontier  wars  should  we  have  been,  ere  now,  engaged, 
and  how  many  puppet  kings  should  we  have  placed  upon  neigh- 
bouring thrones,  and  then  have  seen  dethroned  again,  had  he 
adopted  and  had  the  Governments  of  England  and  of  India  ap- 
proved of  the  contrary  policy  ! 

The  tribes  on  our  western  frontier — partly,  perhaps,  because 
they  were  overawed  by  our  conquest  of  their  formidable  op- 
pressors, the  Sikhs,  and  partly  also  because  they  were  surprised 
and  satisfied  by  our  unaggressive  attitude  towards  themselves — 
had  hitherto  given  us  much  less  trouble  than  the  character  of 
their  country  and  the  whole  course  of  their  history  would  have 
led  us  to  expect.  But  barbarians  are  often  ready  to  attribute 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


373 


forbearance  and  moderation-qualities  of  which  they  know  so 
little  themselves— to  a consciousness  of  weakness  ; and  it  was 
not  till  various  tribes  had  essayed  to  cross  our  frontier  and  burn 
our  villages,  and  had  tested,  to  their  cost,  the  adequacy  of  our 
frontier  posts  and  frontier  force,  for  purposes  of  offence  as  well 
as  of  defence,  that  they  began  to  attribute  our  moderation  to 
its  true  cause— a just,  and  wise,  and  consistent  policy,  based  on 
the  knowledge,  not  of  our  weakness,  but  of  our  strength.  Most 
of  these  raids  were  repelled  or  punished  at  the  cost  of  very  few 
men  and  very  little  money.  But  Peshawur,  surrounded  as  it 
was  by  hostile  or  lately  subdued  tribes  on  three  sides,  was  still 
a standing  source  of  anxiety. 

Peshawur  (wrote  John  Lawrence,  on  September  the  1st)  is  unlike  any 
other  place,  except,  perhaps,  Bunnoo.  In  these  two  districts  all  the 
people  have  been  robbers  and  murderers  from  their  cradles.  It  is  not 
a section  of  the  people  with  whom  we  have  to  deal ; it  is  the  whole 
mass. 

The  letter  had  hardly  been  written  when  news  came  that 
Mackeson,  the  Commissioner  of  Peshawur,  a first-rate  soldier 
and  a good  political  officer,  had  himself  fallen  a victim  to  the 
dagger  of  the  assassin.  A shoemaker  by  trade  had  come  with 
a petition,  as  he  was  sitting,  without  a guard,  in  the  verandah 
of  his  house,  and,  while  he  was  reading  it,  had  stabbed  him 
mortally.  The  deed  was  put  down,  in  the  panic  which  ensued, 
to  the  instigation  of  the  Ameer  of  Kabul,  to  the  Akhund  of 
Swat,  and  I know  not  how  many  potentates  besides.  Expe- 
ditions against  all  of  them  were  talked  of  by  irresponsible  poli- 
ticians in  the  cantonments  and  station  of  Peshawur.  James, 
who  had  to  ‘ officiate  ’ as  Commissioner  of  Peshawur  in  Macke- 
son’s  place,  condemned  the  murderer  to  death  without  observ- 
ing any  of  the  forms  of  justice.  Troops  were  ordered  up  by  the 
military  authorities  from  Wuzeerabad  to  Rawul  Pindi,  and  from 
Rawul  Pindi  to  Peshawur,  and  then  were  counter-ordered  be- 
fore they  reached  their  destination,  to  the  great  increase  of  the 
general  confusion  and  alarm.  A plot  was  discovered,  or  im- 
agined, to  seize  the  cantonments  at  Rawul  Pindi  when  deserted 
by  their  proper  garrison,  and  Nadir  Khan,  a discontented  son 
of  the  Raja  of  Mandla,  escaped  to  the  hills,  hoping  to  gather 
the  hill-tribes  round  him. 

But  John  Lawrence,  who  happened  to  be  at  Simla,  kept  his 
head  ; rebuked  James  sternly  by  return  of  post  for  his  neglect 


374 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


of  the  rules  of  procedure,  and  for  having  yielded  to  the  general 
panic  ; ordered  the  execution  of  the  murderer  to  be  put  off  till 
all  legal  forms  had  been  duly  complied  with,  and  till  some  ef- 
fort had  been  made  to  find  out  whether  he  had  accomplices  ; 
suggested  all  the  precautions  in  Peshawur  and  its  neighbour- 
hood which  seemed  really  necessary,  and  was  soon  able  to  con- 
vince others,  as  he  had  already  convinced  himself,  that,  in  a 
hotbed  of  fanaticism  like  Peshawur  it  was  unnecessary  to  look 
for  any  prompting  from  Kabul  or  from  Swat  for  such  a deed. 

The  murderer  was  hanged,  after  his  case  had  been  duly  rein- 
vestigated, and,  by  John  Lawrence’s  suggestion,  his  body  was 
burned  and  his  ashes  scattered  to  the  winds,  to  prevent  the 
place  of  his  burial  being  turned  into  a place  of  pilgrimage,  and 
so  into  an  incitement  to  fresh  murders,  by  the  barbarous  sur- 
rounding tribes.  His  confession  on  the  scaffold  corroborated 
the  Chief  Commissioner’s  opinion  that  his  deed  had  had  no 
instigators,  while  Edward  Thornton’s  promptitude  and  courage 
enabled  him,  at  the  expense  of  a bullet-wound  in  the  throat 
from  a skulking  foe,  to  overtake  and  capture  Nadir  Khan  be- 
fore any  rising  in  the  hills  had  taken  place.  Other  reassuring 
measures  produced  their  proper  effect,  and  the  panic,  which 
had  at  one  time  threatened  to  be  a disgraceful  and  dangerous 
one,  subsided  almost  as  quickly  as  it  had  spread. 

But  the  unsatisfactory  state  of  things  revealed  by  the  murder 
of  Mackeson,  and  its  sequel,  determined  John  Lawrence  to  go 
to  Peshawur  himself,  that  he  might  see  with  his  own  eyes  how 
far  the  measures  suggested  by  him  two  years  before  had  been 
carried  out,  and  that  he  might  concert  with  the  new  Commis- 
sioner, whoever  he  might  be,  measures  which  might  make  life 
and  property  more  secure,  and  attach  the  inhabitants  to  our  rule. 

Mackeson  (he  says)  looked  only  to  political  and  military  matters,  and 
neglected  that  which  he  never  understood — the  civil  administration.  He 
was  always  looking  beyond  the  border  rather  than  into  our  own  manage- 
ment. We  are  strangers  and  infidels  in  the  eyes  of  the  people.  If  we 
cannot  give  them  peace  and  security,  how  can  we  make  our  rule  popu- 
lar ? Though  it  is  not  necessary,  and  probably  not  practicable,  to  give 
the  same  polish  to  things  on  the  border  as  in  the  interior  of  the  coun- 
try, a vigorous  and  intelligent  executive  is  even  of  more  consequence 
there  than  elsewhere,  for  neglect  produces  more  fatal  and  pernicious 
consequences.  ...  It  seems  to  me,  the  mistake  we  make  is  this  : 
We  put  incapable  men  into  the  command  of  the  garrison,  and  then,  to 
mend  matters,  we  select  good  soldiers  for  our  civil  administrators.  Thus 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


375 


both  departments  go  to  the  dogs.  Give  the  Peshawur  command  to  such 
men  as  Patrick  Grant,  or  Franks  of  H.M.  10th  ; reorganise  your  mili- 
tary system  there,  or,  rather,  organise  a proper  one  ; have  troops  armed 
and  equipped  for  hill  service  ; thoroughly  subdue  every  hill-tribe  which 
gives  us  just  cause  of  complaint,  and  make  your  civil  officers  devote 
their  energies  to  the  administration  of  the  country.  You  will  then  over- 
come the  tribes,  satisfy  the  people,  and  be  respected  everywhere. 
As  it  is  now,  we  are  neither  feared  by  our  enemies  nor  respected  by  our 
subjects.  No  man  appreciated  Mackeson’s  high  qualities  more  than  I 
did,  but  work  I could  not  get  out  of  him.  I have  written  five  times  offi- 
cially, and  three  times  privately,  before  I could  get  an  answer  to  an  or- 
dinary reference  ! Everything  was  in  arrears.  The  people  felt  that  their 
affairs  were  not  attended  to ; and  yet  we  are  surprised  and  indignant 
that  they  do  not  like  us. 

The  important  and  immediate  question  was,  who  the  new 
Commissioner  of  Peshawur  was  to  be.  Lord  Dalhousie  had 
candidates  of  his  own  in  view,  and  had  more  than  once  met 
the  Chief  Commissioner’s  recent  recofnmendations  with  what 
the  Chief  Commissioner  himself  happily  called  ‘ an  imperial 
No.'  But  this  was  an  occasion  on  which  John  Lawrence  could 
not  afford  to  be  modest,  and,  with  all  his  earnestness  and  de- 
cision, he  pressed  on  the  Governor-General  the  pre-eminent 
claims  of  Herbert  Edwardes  for  Peshawur,  and  of  John  Becher 
for  Huzara. 

The  answer  was  that  they  might  go  there  now,  but  it  must 
be  distinctly  understood  that  their  appointments  were  only 
temporary.  But  John  Lawrence  was  not  to  be  silenced,  and 
his  reply  is  interesting,  partly  as  giving  his  deliberate  opinion 
of  his  distinguished  subordinate — an  opinion  so  abundantly 
justified  by  the  result — partly  as  showing,  what  I think  has 
never  been  made  public  before,  nor  was  known  to  the  person 
most  concerned,  nor  even  to  his  biographer — that  J^ord  Dal- 
housie’s  candidate  for  Peshawur  was  a man  more  distinguished 
still — the  Bayard  of  India — the  late  Sir  James  Outram.  There 
were  obvious  objections  to  such  an  appointment,  which  John 
Lawrence  was  not  slow  to  urge,  but  it  is  not  without  interest  to 
those  who  know  the  circumstances  to  speculate  as  to  what 
might  have  been  the  result  on  the  destinies  of  both  men  and 
both  provinces  had  the  most  distinguished  ‘soldier  political’  of 
the  Scinde  frontier  been  transferred  to  the  post  of  danger  on 
that  of  the  Punjab,  and  become  subject  to  the  control  of  the 
great  Punjab  civilian,  who  had  so  much  of  a soldier’s  heart. 


376 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


Would  Sir  James  Outram,  for  instance,  have  been  able,  or 
would  he  have  desired,  to  introduce  into  the  Punjab  frontier 
policy  any  part  of  what  was  best  in  that  of  the  rival  province  ? 
Would  he  have  been  able,  without  entering  on  any  aggressive 
wars,  to  have  acquired  over  the  untamed  Afridis  and  Moh- 
munds  any  such  influence  as  that  which  he  had  acquired  over  the 
more  manageable  and  peaceful  Beluchis  and  Bheels  ? Would, 
finally,  the  chivalrous  defender  of  native  princes  and  races 
everywhere  have  taken  up  the  weapons  which  had  dropped  from 
Henry  Lawrence’s  hand,  and  so  have  renewed  the  struggles  of 
the  Board  ; or  would  he  have  been  able  to  work  cordially  with 
the  modified  views  of  his  new  master  ? 

John  Lawrence  writes,  on  October  6,  1853  : — 

Lahore. 

My  Lord, — I feel  grateful  for  the  consideration  which  your  letter  dis- 
plays, and  the  best  return  which  I can  make  will  be  to  state  honestly  and 
fully  my  views  on  the  important  point  of  naming  a Commissioner  for 
Peshawur. 

I have  already  informed  your  Lordship  that  I consider  that  Edwardes 
would  worthily  fill  the  appointment.  After  thinking  well  over  the  sub- 
ject, and  comparing  in  my  mind  his  qualities  with  those  possessed  by 
others,  I have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  I would  much  prefer  to  have 
him  there.  In  original  ability,  and  in  education,  he  will  bear  comparison 
with  any  officer,  civil  or  military,  that  I know.  He  has  excellent  judg- 
ment, good  temper,  force  of  character,  and  considerable  knowledge  of 
the  natives.  His  military  and  political  talents  are  considerable.  He 
does  not  possess  extensive  civil  experience,  but  has  had  two  years’  good 
training,  which,  to  a man  of  his  ability,  is  equal  to  double  that  period 
with  most  other  people.  He  has  had  the  advantage  of  seeing  the  work- 
ing of  the  civil  administration  in  all  its  details  by  having  charge  of  a dis- 
trict which  had  been  regularly  settled  and  managed,  and  he  has  served 
under  one  of  the  ablest  Commissioners  (Donald  Macleod)  in  India. 
When  he  left  Jullundur,  Macleod  pronounced  him  to  be  the  best  district 
officer  he  had  ever  met  with.  Without  subscribing  to  this  opinion,  I 
know  few  better  ones  ; and,  as  a Commissioner,  he  would  perhaps  be 
more  at  home  than  even  in  charge  of  a district.  Edwardes  possesses 
broad  views,  a conciliatory  and  kindly  disposition,  and  a natural  aptitude 
for  civil  administration,  which  he  admires.  Such  a man  is  more  likely 
to  reconcile  the  Peshawuris  to  our  rule  than  any  other  who  is  available, 
while  he  has  all  the  qualities  to  command  the  esteem  of  his  military  com- 
rades, and  the  respect  of  the  frontier  tribes. 

I have  known  him  intimately  for  seven  years,  and  we  are  on  terms  of 
the  most  affectionate  intimacy.  There  is  a considerable  difference  in 
our  ages,  and  I am  sure  I possess  much  influence  with  him.  My  wishes 
and  judgment  are,  therefore,  strongly  in  his  favour. 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


377 


Edwardes’  reputation  has,  no  doubt,  excited  the  jealousy  of  his  own 
service,  to  which  he  is  an  honour,  but  that  feeling  has  greatly  lessened 
since  his  return  from  England.  He  was  much  liked  at  J ullundur.  He  is, 
doubtless,  a young  soldier,  but  cannot  be  less  than  from  thirty-two  to 
thirty-three  years  old,  and  possesses  sufficient  military  rank.  . . . 

As  regards  Qutram,  1 feel  much  delicacy  in  even  discussing  his  char- 
acter. He  is  a fine  soldier  and  a noble  fellow  ; but  he  is  much  my  senior  in 
age,  and  has  been  accustomed  to  the  highest  charges.  Such  a man  could 
not  brook,  not  merely  my  control,  which  would  be  sufficiently  irksome, 
but  that  of  the  Judicial  and  Financial  Commissioners.  It  is  not  possible 
that  he  possesses  any  knowledge  of  civil  administration.  He  has  been 
bred  in  the  political  school  altogether,  and  must,  therefore,  follow  its  re- 
ceived opinions.  He  will  look  to  the  feelings  and  prejudices  of  the  higher 
classes,  and  not  to  the  interests  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  No  man  can 
teach  that  which  he  does  not  know.  Be  his  intentions  what  they  may,  he 
will  naturally  follow  the  bent  of  his  own  views  and  experience.  That 
assiduous  attention  to  the  routine  of  administrative  details,  that  prompt 
response  to  all  references,  however  apparently  trivial,  and  that  exact  at- 
tention to  instructions,  can  only  be  secured  in  officers  regularly  trained 
to  their  duties. 

We  are  strangers  in  language,  colour,  and  religion  to  the  people,  who, 
beyond  the  Indus,  are  peculiarly  intractable,  fanatical,  and  warlike.  To 
reconcile  them  to  our  rule  requires  the  most  careful  and  able  manage- 
ment. The  decision  of  every  social  question  becomes  of  political  im- 
portance. We  require  a light  and  equable  land-tax,  carefully  distributed, 
that  the  influential  and  the  cunning  may  not  shift  a portion  of  their  bur- 
then on  to  their  humbler  neighbours.  We  want  a system  of  police  which 
shall  be  prompt,  resolute,  and  discriminating,  but  not  oppressive ; a 
form  of  procedure  of  the  utmost  simplicity,  and,  at  the  same  time,  so 
carefully  guarded  that  the  facilities  for  oppression  shall  be  minimised  ; 
a judicial  system  stern  and  decided,  but  thoroughly  intelligible.  All 
these  qualities  it  may  be  difficult  to  secure  under  the  greatest  precau- 
tions, but  it  is  hopeless  to  find  them  in  any  system  without  the  careful 
training  of  our  officers.  . . . 

Having  now  said  my  say,  I can  only  add  that,  on  whomsoever  your 
Lordship’s  choice  may  fall,  I will  do  all  I can  to  make  his  position  easy 
and  to  facilitate  business. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  representations  so  forcible 
were  met  on  this  occasion  by  an  ‘imperial’  Yes,  and  Edwardes 
was  at  once  gazetted  Commissioner  of  Peshawur.  Before  the 
middle  of  the  month  John  Lawrence  had  set  out  to  join  him 
there.  His  intention  was  to  settle,  in  concert  with  him,  so  far 
as  they  admitted  of  an  immediate  settlement,  the  many  burning 
questions  at  Peshawur  : to  improve  the  defences  of  the  frontier, 
to  suggest  alterations  in  the  composition  of  the  garrison,  to  co- 


373 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


erce  the  Afridis  and  other  barbarous  tribes  who  had  broken  their 
engagements  and  menaced  our  possession  of  the  Kohat  Pass, 
and,  finally,  to  clear  off  the  arrears  left  by  Mackeson — among 
other  things  ‘ twenty-four  sessions  cases  a year  and  upwards 
old ! ’ This  done,  he  proposed  to  visit  Mooltan,  a pai;t  of  the 
Punjab  which,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  he  had  never  yet  seen, 
and  which  he  had  reason  to  believe  was  much  behind  the  rest  of 
the  country  in  organisation  and  development.  Thence  he  was 
to  travel  up  the  whole  length  of  the  Derajat  to  Peshawur,  again 
inspecting  all  the  frontier  posts  and  forts,  and  judging  for  him- 
self of  the  success  of  the  administration,  and  of  the  condition 
of  the  people  in  each  district.  This  programme,  extensive  as  it 
was,  he  carried  out  to  the  letter.  It  was  a good  six  months’ 
work,  and  his  letters  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  to  Courtenay  and 
others  are  so  numerous  during  the  early  part  of  it,  that  here,  if 
nowhere  else  in  his  life,  they  serve  almost  the  purpose  of  a 
diary,  from  which  I propose  to  make  such  short  quotations  as 
possess  any  special  interest,  or  are  characteristic  of  the  man, 
or  of  his  work. 

To  Courtenay. 

October  11,  1853. 

There  is  no  extraordinary  difficulty  in  managing  Peshawur,  if  we  go 
about  it  in  the  right  way.  . . . I will  engage,  with  Edwardes’  aid,  to 

have  it  in  excellent  order  ip  six  months.  The  military  part  is  not  so 
easy.  With  one-half  of  the  army  screaming  through  the  press  for  active 
measures,  we  have  the  other  half  averse  to  service  in  the  hills.  This 
latter  feeling  arises  from  various  causes,  but  mainly  from  a want  of  con- 
fidence in  the  leading  officers,  and  the  inability  of  our  native  troops, 
with  their  present  arms  and  equipments,  to  cope  with  the  mountaineers. 
If  this  be  the  real  evil,  the  remedy  is  in  our  own  hands.  Select  the 
officer  who  shall  command  at  Peshawur — Outram  would  do  it  admirably. 
Give  him  brevet  rank.  Take  away  the  Regular  Infantry  of  your  native 
army,  and  place  a portion  of  them  at  Attock.  Keep  three  European 
corps  of  infantry  at  Peshawur  and  Noushera,  with  the  proper  proportion 
of  guns,  and  raise  several  Irregular  corps  of  infantry  of  picked  men  of 
different  castes,  all  armed  and' accoutred  for  mountain  warfare.  Put 
none  but  first-rate  officers  to  these  corps.  Do  this,  and  you  will  hear  no 
more  of  these  alarms  and  dangers  from  insurrections  and  religious  wars. 

To  the  same. 

Jhelum  : October  16. 

The  object  of  mounting  the  guns  ‘ quietly’  was  to  prevent  excitement. 
While  preparing  to  pitch  into  a fellow,  1 would  not  frighten  him  into  a 
revolt.  Quietly  as  guns  are  put  up,  folks  arc  not  slow  to  see  them. 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  379 

Nothing,  in  my  mind,  conduces  more  to  overawe  the  natives  than  a 
quiet,  resolute  demeanour.  It  is  these  cursed  ranting  fellows,  who  see 
a conspirator  in  every  chap  they  meet,  who  march  and  countermarch 
troops  and  the  like,  that  do  the  mischief  and  make  the  natives  think  we 
funk.  One  soldier  like  Will  Mayne,  or  Outram,  is  doubtless  worth  a 
brigade,  if  in  command,  on  such  occasions.  If  we  could  make  an  ex- 
ample of  one  Afridi  clan,  as  Mayne  has  done,  we  should  hear  no  more 
of  their  villany  and  insolence.  Thomason  is  a great  loss,  a greater  one 
than  many  can  understand.  He  was  a real  administrator,  not  a brum- 
magem. The  Governor-General’s  eulogium  on  him  was  a just  and  kind 
one.  I hit  on  John  Colvin  as  his  successor  the  moment  I heard  of  poor 
Thomason’s  death.  ...  I never  dreamed  of  the  appointment  my- 
self ; I feel  that  I am  tied  to  the  Punjab  for  the  rest  of  my  official  exist- 
ence, which,  however,  I hope  may  not  be  a very  long  one. 

To  Edwardes. 

Jhelum  : October  16. 

I am  very  glad  that  you  will  be  at  Peshawur  by  the  1 8th.  I think  it  is 
a great  pity  that  our  officers  write  and  speak  as  they  do.  They  seem 
determined  to  damage  themselves  and  the  administration  as  effectually 
as  they  can.  It  was  quite  refreshing  to  get  a chit  from  Johnnie  Becher, 
corroborating  as  it  does  your  account  of  the  peaceful  disposition  of  the 
Huzara  people. 

To  Lord  Dalhousie. 

Camp  Hutti,  fourteen  miles  from  Attock  : 
October  26,  1853. 

The  regular  Sepoys  hate  Peshawur,  though  food  is  cheap  there.  They 
prefer  this  side  of  the  Indus  without  the  batta  to  Peshawur  with  it.  They 
are  unfit  for  service  in  the  hills  from  habit,  discipline  and  organisation  ; 
but  they  will  do  sufficiently  well  as  a counterpoise  to  more  efficient 
troops.  To  keep  Peshawur  quiet,  we  want  an  efficient  and  popular  ad- 
ministration, and  the  thorough  subjection  of  every  hill-tribe.  By  subjec- 
tion, I mean  that  they  must  learn  to  fear  and  obey  us,  not  that  they 
should  become  our  subjects.  Picked  troops,  armed  with  rifles  and 
lightly  equipped,  would  carry  the  terror  of  our  arms  into  the  most  rugged 
fastnesses  and  the  steepest  hills. 

To  Courtenay. 

Camp  Noushera  : October  29. 

I think  poor  Charlie  Napier  will  probably  make  an  ass  of  himself  in 
his  posthumous  work.  Like  Falstaff’s  sack,  which  bore  so  large  a pro- 
portion in  his  daily  expenditure  compared  with  bread,  there  will  be  in 
Napier’s  work  very  much  about  himself,  and  little  about  India.  He 
was  so  eaten  up  with  passion  and  prejudice  that  his  really  good  qualities 
had  not  fair  play. 


3 So 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


Lord  Dalhousie  had  asked  his  Lieutenant  pointedly  in  one 
of  his  letters,  ‘ Which  way  do  your  eyes  turn  in  the  future,  to 
Council  or  to  Agra  ? ’ and  added  in  a postscript,  which  may  be 
worth  quotation,  as  showing  the  growth  of  intimacy  between 
John  Lawrence  and  the  ‘ Lord  Sahib,’  who  never  himself  forgot, 
or  allowed  anyone  else  to  forget,  that  he  was  Governor-General : 
‘ I have  just  cast  my  eyes  by  chance  on  your  letter,  and  see, 
what  never  struck  me  before,  that  “ My  Lord  ” begins  and  ends 
it.  Don’t  you  think  “ My  dear  Lord  ” would  suit  the  terms  of 
friendship  and  cordiality  on  which  we  have  long  been  ? I think 
so  for  my  part.’ 

The  following  was  the  answer  : — 

My  dear  Lord, — I think  the  selection  of  John  Colvin  for  the  Lieutenant- 
Governorship  of  the  N.-W.  Provinces  will  give  general  satisfaction. 
There  is  no  civilian  there  who  can  challenge  comparison  with  him.  I 
have  never  myself  had  a thought  of  leaving  the  Punjab,  so  long  as  I pos- 
sessed health  and  strength,  and  Government  were  satisfied  with  my  ser- 
vices. The  circumstances  under  which  I was  selected  for  the  post  bound 
me  by  every  tie  of  honour  to  look  for  nothing  more.  It  is  a very  arduous 
post,  and  one  in  which  we  cannot  always  command  success.  I have  no 
ambition  to  be  a member  of  Council.  If  ever  Agra  was  offered  to  me, 
and  I could  take  it  with  honour,  I should  hardly,  perhaps,  refuse.  But 
I would  prefer  remaining  here  for  many  years,  so  long,  that  is,  as  I can 
do  the  duty  efficiently.  I should  like  to  fix  my  own  impress  on  the  ad- 
ministration, and  show  what  even  a civilian  can  do  in  a new  country. 

Your  Lordship  will  perceive  that  I have  taken  advantage  of  the  kind 
invitation  contained  in  the  postscript  of  your  note,  and  beg  to  subscribe 
myself,  my  dear  Lord, 

Yours  sincerely, 

John  Lawrence. 

John  Lawrence  arrived  at  Peshawur  on  October  31,  but  found 
that  so  large  a number  of  the  garrison  there  were  still  prostrate 
with  sickness  that  none  could  be  spared  to  join  him  in  coercing 
the  hostile  Afridis  of  the  two  passes  which  lead  thence  to  the 
famous  Kohat  valley.  But  he  found  plenty  of  other  work  to 
do.  He  inspected  in  company  with  Robert  Napier  the  fortifi- 
cations of  the  town.  He  endeavoured  to  press  on  to  its  com- 
pletion that  remote  portion  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  by  ap- 
plying to  Golab  Sing  for  the  help  of  500  Kashmiris.  He  spent 
the  mornings  of  each  day,  from  a very  early  hour  up  to  noon, 
in  reconnoitring  the  position  of  the  enemy,  and  the  afternoons 
in  clearing  off  the  sessions  cases  of  a year’s  standing  left  by 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


381 


Mackeson,  ‘all  of  them,’ observes  John  Lawrence,  ‘desperate 
fellows.’  He  built  the  long-talked-of  fort  at  the  entrance  to 
the  Kohat  pass,  as  a means  of  coercing  the  Afridis  of  that  pass; 
and  he  made  one  more  effort  for  peace  by  sending  for  the  Mul- 
liks  of  the  Afridis  belonging  to  the  other  pass,  and,  after  three 
days  of  consultation  with  them,  succeeded  in  bringing  them  to 
terms. 

But  there  was  one  clan  among  them — the  Bori  Afridis — who 
were  not  so  amenable  to  reason.  They  inhabited  a cluster  of 
villages  in  the  interior  of  the  hills,  supposed  to  be  impregnable. 
During  the  last  two  years  they  had  made  many  raids  into  the 
Peshawur  valley,  had  harboured  twenty-four  outlaws  of  the 
Rawul  Pindi  district,  had  furnished  them  with  horses  for  the 
express  purpose  of  robbery  and  murder,  and  had  repeatedly 
carried  off  British  subjects,  whom  they  still  held  to  ransom. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  demanded  that  the  prisoners  should 
be  set  free,  the  plunder  restored,  and  the  horses  of  the  robber 
band  surrendered.  The  demand  was  flatly  refused,  and  the 
Boris  sent  a message  to  him  bidding  him  to  do  his  worst.  This 
was  too  much  for  the  Chief  Commissioner.  His  old  military 
ardour  was  aroused.  He  had  a just  cause  and,  what  was  not 
likely  to  occur  again  in  his  lifetime,  a chance  of  planning  and 
directing  military  operations  himself. 

An  elaborate  plan  for  attacking  the  mountaineers  simulta- 
neously at  very  different  points,  so  as  to  inflict  more  signal  re- 
tribution and  produce  more  lasting  effect,  was  prepared  by 
him  in  person  and  was  approved  of,  to  his  great  delight,  by 
such  good  soldiers  as  Norman,  Lumsden,  Cotton,  and  James, 
and  was  only  given  up  when  it  was  found  that  General  Roberts, 
who  was  then  in  command  at  Peshawur,  and  who  will  be  known 
to  posterity  chiefly  as  the  father  of  his  illustrious  son,  Sir  Fred- 
erick Roberts,  was  still  unable  to  supply  the  contingent  which 
was  necessary'.  ‘ Well,’  said  John,  ‘ if  we  cannot  do  all  we 
want,  at  least  we  will  do  all  we  can.’  And  he  sent  off  at  once 
for  the  Guides  from  Hoti  Murdan,  whose  presence  would  raise 
the  troops  at  his  own  disposal  to  1,300  men.  Coke,  ‘ a fine 
plucky  soldier,  positive  and  opiniated,  but  honest  and  straight- 
forward,’ was  still  for  trying  other  measures,  but  the  Chief 
Commissioner  stood  firm.  ‘An  example,’  he  said,  ‘is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  I think  that  I have  long  enough  given  up  my 
own  plans  to  assist  yours,  and  that  the  time  has  come  to  resume 
the  former.  ...  I hold  to  my  plan  to  attack  Bori  on  Tues- 


382 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


day.  I am  not  to  be  dissuaded  from  it  on  any  account.’  The 
attack  was  accordingly  made  on  November  29,  and  with  the 
result  which  he  described  on  the  following  day,  in  a spirited 
letter  to  Lord  Dalhousie. 

November  30,  1853. 

My  dear  Lord, — I write  a line  to  say  that  we,  yesterday,  crossed  the 
low  range  and  entered  the  valley  in  which  the  Bori  Afridis  are,  destroyed 
their  villages,  and  came  out  the  same  day.  We  were  out  in  this  affair 
sixteen  hours  ; so  it  was  a very  hard  day’s  work  for  the  troops.  We  had 
a splendid  little  force  : Guides,  450  ; Ghoorkas,  400  ; Europeans,  400  ; 
Native  Infantry,  20.  The  Afridis  fought  desperately,  and  the  mode  in 
which  the  Guides  and  the  Ghoorkas  crowned  the  heights  which  com- 
manded the  villages  was  the  admiration  of  every  officer  present.  These 
are,  indeed,  the  right  sort  of  fellows.  Our  loss  is  eight  men  killed  and 
twenty-four  wounded.  The  men  got  no  water  and  suffered  a good  deal. 

I think  this  expedition  is  calculated  to  do  much  good.  The  Bori  val- 
ley has  not  been  entered  by  an  enemy  for  many  hundred  years,  I believe, 
and  the  prestige  which  will  attend  the  affair  will  be  proportioned  to  the 
success  of  the  operation.  The  Afridis  of  the  lower  hills  at  the  mouth  of 
the  pass  behaved  extremely  well.  They  sat  on  the  heights  around,  but 
did  not  fire  a shot. 

The  Afridis  of  the  lower  hills  were  those,  it  should  be  ex- 
plained, with  whom  he  had  just  come  to  terms,  and  who  might 
have  been  expected,  after  the  manner  of  their  kind,  to  rise 
against  him  all  the  more  readily. 

‘ But,’  says  the  Chief  Commissioner,  ‘ I sat  during  the  en- 
gagement for  two.  hours  yesterday  in  the  villages  of  Toorana, 
with  the  sides  of  the  hill  covered  with  these  armed  men,  and  I 
saw  our  troops  come  through  the  gorge  and  not  a shot  was  fired 
at  them.  They  brought  our  men  water  to  drink,  and,  in  fact, 
behaved  remarkably  well  towards  us.’  The  arts  of  the  Chief 
Commissioner  were,  on  this  occasion,  as  successful  as  his  arms. 
And  I have  dwelt’on  the  operations,  small  as  they  were,  all  the 
more  because  of  the  characteristic  enjoyment  and  ardour  with 
which  eye-witnesses  have  told  me  that  he  planned  and  took 
part  in  them,  and  because  I have  myself  heard  him,  when  he 
was  enfeebled  with  age  and  disease,  speak,  with  boyish  glee  and 
a visible  sparkle  in  his  almost  sightless  grey  eyes,  of  the  occa- 
sion when,  as  Chief  Commissioner,  he  had  managed  so  far  to 
thwart  his  peaceful  destiny  as,  for  one  day  at  least,  to  be  ‘ under 
fire  ! ’ I may  add  that  the  destruction  of  so  strong  a place  had 
the  best  effect,  and  there  was  no  subsequent  trouble  from  the 
Bori  quarter. 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  383 


An  attempt  to  assassinate  Lieutenant  Godby  of  the  Guides 
at  Murdan  followed  with  startling  rapidity  upon  the  assassina- 
tion of  Mackeson.  But  the  panic  which  followed  Mackeson’s 
death  had  fortunately  been  allayed  before  this  new  deed  of 
violence.  And,  still  more  fortunately,  the  Chief  Commissioner 
happened  to  be  at  Peshawur  when  it  took  place,  and  no  new 
panic  was  possible  in  his  presence. 

Peshawur  : December  2,  8 p.m. 

My  dear  Lord, — I came  in  here  this  day.  I am  sorry  to  say  that  about 
two  P.M.  a horseman  came  in  from  Hoti  Murdan,  where  Lieutenant 
Godby  was  with  the  Guide  Cavalry,  and  told  us  that  that  officer  had 
been  stabbed  in  the  back  this  morning  by  a man  who  was  cut  to  pieces 
on  the  instant,  by  the  Guides.  The  man  who  came  in  was  a jemadar, 
a very  intelligent  fellow.  He  says  that  poor  Godby  was  standing  in  the 
middle  of  camp,  superintending  the  loading  of  some  camels,  when  a 
snake  came  out  from  beneath  some  stones,  on  which  he  ran  and  put 
his  foot  upon  its  head.  While  bending  down  doing  this,  a little,  old- 
looking  man,  whom  nobody  had  noticed,  rushed  forward  and  stabbed 
him  in  the  back.  Nobody  seemed  to  know  who  he  was  or  whence  he 
came.  I will  write  again  directly  I hear  further  particulars. 

Happily  Godby  was  a young  man,  and  of  a spare  habit  of 
body.  This  gave  him  a better  chance  of  life,  and  in  ten  days 
he  was  pronounced  to  be  out  of  danger. 

After  an  inspection  of  the  frontier  forts  to  the  north  of  Pe- 
shawur, the  Chief  Commissioner  returned  by  December  9 to 
Lahore,  that  he  might  spend  a few  days  with  his  family  before 
the  second  great  break  in  it  occurred.  Three  of  his  children, 
— his  two  eldest  sons,  John  and  Henry,  and  his  third  daughter, 
Alice  Margaret — he  was  obliged  to  send  to  England.  But  as 
in  the  case  of  his  two  eldest  daughters,  some  kind  friends — Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Charles  Saunders,  of  Umritsur — volunteered  to  es- 
cort them,  and  a few  days  after  their  departure,  John  Lawrence 
and  his  wife,  with  the  one  child,  a baby,  who  was  now  left  to 
them,  were  glad  to  exchange  their  desolate  home  at  Lahore, 
which  he  ‘ found  insupportable,’  for  the  excitement  of  camp 
life  and  the  tour  to  Mooltan  and  the  Derajat. 

An  extract  from  a letter  to  Edwardes,  written  just  as  he  left 
Lahore,  gives  some  particulars  of  his  power  of  getting  through 
work  which  have  a biographical  interest. 

Our  officers  should  be  young  men,  rough-and-ready  fellows,  fit  to  put* 
their  hands  to  any  work  against  time  and  tide.  I cannot  believe  that 
the  Treasury  can  take  up  the  time  of  one  officer.  If  I were  Deputy- 


384 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


Commissioner  I would  be  bound  to  prove  that  it  did  not  take  up  one- 
half  his  time.  I don’t  speak  without  cause  ; I had  charge  of  a treasury 
for  six  years,  unaided,  and  the  time  it  occupied  was  hardly  appreciable. 
For  instance,  if  I had  to  see  money  counted,  I took  my  work  to  the 
treasury,  and  while  my  ears  were  hearing  reports  and  cases,  my  eyes 
were  looking  at  money  being  counted.  I signed  and  checked  bills 
while  evidence  was  being  taken  by  my  side.  Half-an-hour  a day  sufficed 
to  look  over  the  accounts,  with  perhaps  a couple  of  days’  extra  work  in 
a couple  of  months. 

At  Mooltan  he  examined,  with  a soldier’s  interest,  the  spots 
made  famous,  by  the  murders  of  Agnew  and  Anderson,  by  the 
daring  deeds  of  Edwardes,  and  by  the  chequered  but  ultimately 
successful  siege.  Then,  passing  through  a wild  and  uncleared 
country,  in  which  he  found,  to  his  surprise  and  disgust,  that 
thefts  and  burglary  and  cattle-stealing  were  still  very  common, 
he  reached  Dera  Ghazi  Khan.  Here  he  left  the  ladies  of  his 
party — his  wife  and  Mrs.  Macpherson,  the  wife  of  his  indefati- 
gable Military  Secretary — and,  with  his  horse  and  a small  camp 
dropped  down  the  river  to  Mitthancote,  the  southern  extrem- 
ity of  his  province,  and  the  point  where  the  Indus  receives  in 
one  stream  of  hardly  less  volume  than  its  own  the  united 
waters  of  the  five  rivers  of  the  Punjab.  Thence  he  marched  back 
again,  along  the  frontier  posts  and  forts,  to  Dera  Ghazi  Khan, 
where  he  received  a visit  from  a wild  Khatteran  chieftain,  Haji 
Khan,  a man  who  came  from  far  beyond  our  frontier,  and  had 
‘ never  seen  a European  before,’  but  offered  to  forward  him  let- 
ters from  Kandahar — which  might  be  of  importance  in  view  of 
the  Russian  war  just  then  breaking  out — and  even  volunteered 
to  join  us  in  an  expedition  against  the  formidable  Murris. 

Lord  Dalhousie,  in  reply  to  John  Lawrence’s  letter,  detailing 
the  circumstances  of  this  interview,  writes  : — 

Perhaps  you  may  make  something  of  Haji  Khan  Khatteran.  By  the 
way,  as  this  man  had  never  seen  a European  before,  it  was  very  politic 
of  you  to  show  yourself  to  him  as  the  first  specimen  of  the  conquering  race  ! 
I have  no  doubt  he  will  be  as  desirous  to  retain  a recollection  of  you  as  I 
am,  and  as  I have  lately  taken  the  liberty  of  showing.  For  I have  to  apol- 
ogise to  you  for  getting  a dagucrrotype  taken  from  the  portrait  of  you 
which  Mr.  C.  Saunders  brought  down.  It  was  exceedingly  like,  and  I 
have  great  pleasure  in  possessing  it.  You  will  pardon,  I hope,  my  tak- 
ing it  without  leave. 

Lord  Dalhousie  had  proposed  to  give  a jagheer,  in  recogni- 
tion of  his  services,  to  Futtch  Khan  Khuttuck,  a russeldar  of 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  385 

the  Guides,  who  had  performed  strange  deeds  of  daring  on  our 
behalf,  and  had  recently  done  us  good  service  in  the  fight  in 
the  Bori  valley,  but  had  been  obliged,  in  consequence  of  a disa- 
greement with  Hodson,  the  commandant,  to  leave  the  regiment. 
John  Lawrence  admitted  the  value  of  his  services,  but  objected 
to  this  mode  of  requiting  them,  and  he  gave  a description  of 
the  man  which  is  worth  quoting  for  its  vigour. 

I frankly  confess  I am  afraid  to  try  Futteh  Khan  in  such  a position,  or 
indeed  as  a jagheerdar  at  all.  I have  seen  a good  deal  of  the  man,  and 
have  heard  much  more.  The  value  of  his  services  I admit ; his  peculiar 
martial  qualities  I admire ; but  I look  upon  him  as  a perfect  devil  when  his 
blood  is  up,  and  this  is  very  often.  At  such  a moment  he  would  murder 
his  nearest  and  dearest  relative  or  friend.  He  has  many  and  bitter  feuds 
throughout  Khuttuck,  and  is  grasping  and  domineering  beyond  all  bounds. 
Such  a man,  in  possession  of  a jaghecr,  would  screw  the  cultivators,  oust 
the  proprietors  of  the  soil,  and  invade  the  boundaries  of  his  neighbours. 
Let  him  alone,  and  he  would  become  a pest ; attempt  to  curb  him,  and 
he  resents  the  interference  as  a deadly  wrong. 

I confess,  when  I have  seen  his  eye  flashing  and  his  whole  frame  quiv- 
ering with  emotion,  as  he  narrated  his  real  or  fancied  injuries,  I could 
not  but  think  what  a dangerous  enemy  he  could  prove,  if  vested  with  any 
power.  Lumsden  was  Futteh  Khan’s  great  friend  and  supporter,  but 
even  he  found  it  difficult  to  manage  him.  Futteh  did  much  to  injure 
Lumsden’s  reputation  by  his  acts. 

I will  mention  an  anecdote  I once  heard  of  Futteh  Khan  from  Lums- 
den himself.  Futteh  Khan  and  his  two  brothers  often  quarrelled,  though 
they  made  common  cause  against  others.  During  one  of  these  disputes, 
the  three  brothers  never  met,  even  at  their  meals,  except  with  their 
weapons  bare,  ready  for  use.  The  two  younger  were  on  one  side  and 
Futteh  on  the  other.  This  went  on  for  some  three  months,  when,  one 
day,  the  youngest  brother  was  called  suddenly  away.  Futteh  took  the 
opportunity  to  dart  on  the  other,  seize  him  by  the  hair,  and  force  his  head 
into  the  hot  ashes,  where  he  held  it  until  his  victim  called  out  ‘ tobah  ’ 
(repentance),  and  gave  in.  . . . Futteh  Khan  was  for  many  years  a 

regular  freebooter,  and  would  not  hesitate  to  return  to  the  same  life. 

It  is  a very  delicate  and  difficult  thing  to  manage  a tract  by  means  of 
a native  chief.  One  can  make  it  over  to  his  tender  mercies,  but  this  is 
not  managing  it.  Under  11s,  a chief  can  really  do  more  harm  than  if  he 
is  independent  or  under  a native  ruler,  for  then  he  must,  to  a considerable 
extent,  conciliate  the  people.  Under  us  there  is  no  such  necessity.  It 
is  difficult  to  say  whether  a weak  or  energetic  chief  is  most  mischievous. 
If  strong,  he  plunders  for  himself,  makes  himself  hateful,  and  brings  on 
us  reproach.  If  weak,  his  followers  plunder,  and  he  is  despised,  and  the 
country  falls  into  disorder.  It  is  most  difficult,  also,  to  get  at  the  real 
state  of  affairs  ; all  in  power  are  interested  in  concealing  the  truth  ; those 
Vol.  I. — 25 


386 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


who  are  injured  exaggerate  their  wrongs  ; and  those  who  might  give  use- 
ful information  are  indifferent,  averse  to  the  trouble  and  even  the  danger, 
of  such  interference. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  after  such  a letter  no  more  was 
heard  of  a jagheer  for  Futteh  Khan.  His  merits,  such  as  they 
were,  were  acknowledged  in  another  and  less  objectionable 
fashion. 

During  the  whole  of  this  period  John  Lawrence  was  much 
occupied  by  troubles  connected  with  the  famous  Hodson,  who 
was  in  command  of  the  Guides,  and  one  or  two  of  his  letters, 
selected  from  many  scores  which  bear  upon  the  subject,  will  be 
read  with  interest.  The  correspondence,  as  a whole,  shows 
convincingly  with  what  forbearance  John  Lawrence  treated 
Hodson,  how  he  appreciated  his  soldier-like  qualities,  and  his 
varied  talents,  how  he  bore  with  his  shortcomings,  and  how 
unwilling  he  was,  so  long  as  he  could  possibly  do  otherwise,  to 
believe  the  worst  of  him.  It  was  very  slowly  and  reluctantly 
that  he  came  to  that  belief  : all  the  more  slowly,  I am  persuaded, 
from  his  chivalrous  desire  to  stand  by  a man  whom,  in  his  ear- 
lier and  better  days,  his  brother  Henry  had  taken  under  his 
patronage.  John  Lawrence  did  not  know  then  what  many  of 
his  friends  knew  well  enough — for  Sir  Henry  had  told  them  so 
himself— that  his  brother  had  entirely  ceased  to  believe  in  Hod- 
son’s  integrity  from  the  time  when  he  had  accompanied  him  in 
his  tour  to  Kashmere  and  had  found  himself  in  command  of  the 
money-chest  there.  That  Hodson  had  many  fine  and  engaging 
qualities,  to  begin  with,  is  certain,  and  that  his  moral  decline 
was  gradual  is  also  certain. 

Nemo  repente  fuit  turpissimus. 

It  is  certain,  once  more,  that  when  he  first  entered  the  Pun- 
jab as  a friend  of  Henry  Lawrence,  every  friend  of  Henry  Law- 
rence— and  there  was  no  one  in  the  Punjab  who  was  not  his 
friend — was  prepared  to  welcome,  to  help,  and  to  like  him.  It 
is  preposterous,  therefore,  to  suppose,  as  Ilodson’s  fraternal 
biographer  appears  to  do,  that  there  was  a general  conspiracy 
against  him — a conspiracy  of  some  of  the  best  and  ablest  men 
who  have  been  in  India,  men  who  were  intimate  friends  of 
Henry  Lawrence  and  had  the  minutest  knowledge  of  all  the 
facts  of  the  case,  the  officers  of  Hodson’s  own  regiment,  and 
the  Commissioners  and  Deputy-Commissioners  of  his  own  and 
adjoining  districts  ! 


1 8 52—53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  387 


Hodson  had  been  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  Guides 
by  Lord  Dalhousie,  and,  with  John  Lawrence’s  approval,  had 
received  at  the  same  time  the  civil  charge  of  the  Eusofzye  dis- 
trict. It  was  the  post  of  all  others  which  he  had  coveted,  and 
which  seemed  to  give  the  best  opening  to  his  splendid  qualities 
as  a soldier.  It  is  certain,  therefore,  that  in  September,  1852, 
when  he  received  the  command,  neither  Lord  Dalhousie  nor 
John  Lawrence  can  have  had  any  prejudice  against  him.  He 
had  hardly  entered  on  his  duties  when  complaints  began  to  pour 
in,  from  both  soldiers  and  civilians,  of  arbitrary  and  oppressive 
treatment ; and  as  early  as  March  22,  1853,  I find  John  Law- 
rence writing  thus  to  Courtenay  : — 

Hodson  is,  I believe,  very  unpopular,  both  in  the  Guides  and  with 
military  men  generally.  I don’t  know  exactly  why  this  is.  It  cannot  be 
that  he  has  got  promotion  too  early,  for,  though  a young  soldier,  he  is 
almost  a middle-aged  man.  He  is  an  officer  of  first-rate  ability,  and 
has  received  an  excellent  education.  He  is  gallant,  zealous,  and  intelli- 
gent, and  yet  few  men  like  him.  It  is  the  case  of  the  famous  Dr.  Fell, 
whom  the  young  lady  did  not  like,  but  could  not  tell  why  she  did  not 
do  so. 

John  Lawrence  would  not  have  acted  like  himself  if  he  had 
heard  of  these  complaints  without  trying  to  remove  their  cause, 
and  the  letter  of  which  I quote  a few  sentences  is  again  any- 
thing but  unfriendly  in  its  tone. 

August  7,  1853. 

As  regards  the  general  feeling  of  the  regiment  to  yourself,  you  must 
not  be  hurt  at  what  I say,  for  I do  it  simply  and  solely  for  your  own 
good.  You  may  depend  on  it  that  neither  the  European  nor  the  native 
officers  are  as  rasi  (contented)  as  they  might  be.  I have  heard  it  from 
half-a-dozen  different  quarters.  At  Lahore  I have  heard  it  talked  of  by 
several  parties.  I have  heard  it  direct  from  Peshawur  and  direct  from 
Calcutta.  There  may  have  been  faults  on  their  part,  and  the  discipline 
may  not  have  been  altogether  what  it  ought  to  have  been.  But  sudden 
changes  are  best  avoided.  The  corps  got  a great  name  under  Lumsden, 
who  was  beloved,  I may  say,  for  even  his  very  defects,  to  say  nothing  of 
his  virtues.  If  right  men  go  wrong,  people  will  blame  you.  I don’t 
think  that  Pathans  can  bear  a very  strict  system  of  drill  and  setting  up 
at  any  time.  For  all  these  reasons,  therefore,  I would  introduce  my 
reforms  very  slowly  and  carefully,  carrying  them  out  in  a way  as  little 
vexatious  as  possible. 

What  I write  is  for  your  private  ear  alone.  I wish  you  to  take  counsel 
of  me,  not  to  repeat  what  I write,  which  will  only  make  matters  worse. 
I heard  that  you  addressed  Futteh  Khan  as  Futteh  Khan  Mazool  (turned 
out)  ; this  was  sufficient  to  set  such  a chap  all  of  a blaze. 


388  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1852-53 

The  next  extract  indicates  that  the  tension  was  becoming 
greater. 

Camp,  Mooltan  : February  2,  1854. 

My  dear  Hodson, — Why  don’t  you  send  a reply  to  official  requisitions  ? 
What  is  to  become  of  you  if  you  will  not  answer  letters  ? It  will  not  be 
practicable  to  carry  on  work.  I hear  that  you  say  you  work  night  and 
day,  but  at  what  I can’t  think ! A clever  fellow  like  you  ought  to  have 
little  difficulty  in  getting  through  business  with  proper  despatch. 

I want  a reply  to  the  reference  about  native  officers  being  appointed 
and  dismissed  by  the  commandant  of  the  Guides.  I cannot  reply  to  a 
reference  from  Government  until  I get  it. 

There  is  another  matter  about  which  Melvill  wrote.  I allude  to  my 
brother’s  Kashmere  accounts.  If  you  cannot  give  the  information  asked 
for,  why  not  say  so  ? If  you  can,  let  me  have  it.  Every  month’s  delay 
makes  the  adjustment  of  them  more  difficult.  . . . 

What  are  you  doing  with  Kader  Khan’s  son  in  limbo  ? What  has  he 
to  do  with  the  acts  of  his  father  ? Why  is  not  Kader  Khan  brought  to 
trial  before  the  Commissioner  ? 

The  next  extract  indicates  greater  tension  still. 

Dera  Ismael  Khan  : March  9,  1854. 

My  dear  Hodson, — Read  the  enclosed  memo.,  and  tell  me  when  you 
intend  giving  the  information.  It  is  now  nearly  six  months  since  you 
were  asked  to  report  on  the  appointment  and  dismissal  of  officers  in 
your  corps.  Now  it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  matters  can  work 
well  if  you  thus  delay  to  furnish  information  required  of  you.  Besides 
the  official  reminders,  I have  written  once  privately,  but  with  no  result. 
I want  you  to  clearly  understand  that,  if  we  are  to  work  together,  which 
I sincerely  hope  we  shall  do,  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  obey  punc- 
tually all  requisitions.  It  will  not  answer  to  say  that  you  are  over- 
whelmed with  arrears  and  the  like.  I see  you  have  time  to  answer  letters 
when  you  like.  So  pray  make  up  your  mind  to  reply  to  all  in  due 
course.  This  is  the  last  time  that  I shall  write  thus  on  this  subject. 

The  next  extract  has  a special  interest,  as  I take  it  from  one 
of  the  few  letters  which  passed  between  the  Lawrence  brothers 
during  this  period. 

Murri:  May  6.  1854. 

My  dear  Henry, — I have  just  got  yours  of  the  24th.  ...  I am  in 

great  tribulation  about  Hodson  of  the  Guides.  I don’t  know  what  to 
make  of  him.  His  courage  and  ability  are  unquestioned.  I could  ex- 
cuse his  not  getting  on  with  his  subalterns,  for  a man  like  Lumsden 
would  spoil  most  men  under  him,  at  least  for  any  other  commander. 
Lumsden  also  seems  to  have  left  the  accounts  in  great  disorder,  and 
Hodson  has  not  gone  about  getting  them  right.  He  is  now  getting  rid, 


1852—53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB.  3&9 


or  has  got  rid,  of  the  greater  part  of  his  Pathans  and  Afridis.  Perhaps 
even  this  is  better  than  keeping  men  who  dislike  him.  But  now  I hear 
that  all  the  European  people  dislike  him,  and  that  mischief  may  get  up 
there.  He  had  a scuffle  with  a moonshi  of  the  Guides  the  other  day, 
which  ended  in  the  man  striking  him  in  the  face ! 

I tell  you  all  this,  not  that  it  can  do  any  good,  but  that  you  may  not 
think  that  I have  spited  him.  I was  averse  to  his  getting  the  Guides 
from  a kind  of  indefinable  idea  that  he  was  not  the  man  for  them  ; but, 
since  he  has  got  them,  I have  endeavoured  to  get  on  as  well  as  I could 
with  him.  To  me,  personally,  he  has  always  been  amiable  and  most 
courteous,  but  I would  give  a good  deal  to  see  him  elsewhere,  for  I fear 
a row. 

But  soon  other  and  more  painful  questions  came  to  the  front 
connected  with  the  account-books  of  his  regiment.  It  is  im- 
possible to  go  fully  into  the  case  here,  but  a long  string  of  let- 
ters shows  that  John  Lawrence,  if  he  sometimes  could  not  help 
fearing  the  worst,  was  always  anxious  to  hope  for  the  best  re- 
specting them.  I quote  one  extract.  It  is  a sufficient  answer 
to  the  imputations  attempted  to  be  thrown  upon  John  Law- 
rence throughout  the  book  called  ‘Twelve  Years  of  a Soldier’s 
Life.’ 

June  27,  1855. 

The  delay  in  disposing  of  your  case  has  not  been  caused  by  me,  nor 
have  I,  in  the  slightest  degree,  said  or  done  aught  to  injure  your  charac- 
ter. I have  wished  that  your  case  should  be  disposed  of  by  the  court 
composed  of  your  brother  officers.  But  I may  truly  add  that  I have 
often  expressed  an  opinion  that  nothing  injurious  to  your  character  as  a 
gentleman  would  be  proved.  I have  believed,  and  still  believe,  that  ir- 
regularities, procrastination,  and  general  mismanagement  were  the  main 
faults  of  which  you  were  guilty.  An  officer  maybe  culpable  without  be- 
ing criminal.  He  may  have  done  nothing  dishonourable,  and  yet  be 
deemed  unfit  to  command  a corps  like  the  Guides.  ...  I have 
written  this  letter  in  reply  to  your  note,  because  my  silence  might  have 
been  misconstrued.  It  is  with  regret  that  I have  said  anything  to  give 
you  pain,  and,  for  the  future,  I would  rather  not  discuss  the  merits  of 
your  case.  If  you  think  that  further  inquiry  would  benefit  your  cause, 
you  should.  I think,  ask  for  it  from  the  Commander-in-Chief. 

The  Court  of  Inquiry,  after  protracted  examination,  arrived 
at  conclusions  which  were  very  unfavourable  to  Hodson’s 
character,  and  the  papers  were  duly  forwarded  to  Lord  Dal- 
housie  for  his  decision.  But,  before  he  had  time  to  go  through 
them,  Hodson  became  involved  in  another  trouble  which 
brought  matters  to  a crisis.  It  was  not,  therefore,  as  has  been 


390 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


commonly  supposed,  upon  the  charge  of  malversation  that  Hod- 
son  lost  the  command  of  the  Guides.  It  was  for  his  cruel  and 
arbitrary  treatment  of  a rich  native  chief  named  Kader  Khan, 
who  is  alluded  to  in  one  of  the  above  letters.  Lord  Dalhousie, 
to  whom  the  case  was  reported,  deprived  him  of  his  military 
command  and  of  his  civil  charge.  ‘ Lieutenant  Hodson’s  case  ’ 
he  says  (September  26,  1855),  ‘has  been  lately  before  me.  It  is 
as  bad  as  possible,  and  I have  been  compelled  to  remand  him 
to  his  regiment  with  much  regret,  for  he  is  a gallant  soldier 
and  an  able  man.’  The  Court  of  Directors  at  home,  taking  an 
even  more  serious  view  of  his  conduct,  gave  an  order  that, 
under  no  circumstances  should  he  receive  any  other  command. 
He  thus  disappeared  from  the  Punjab,  but  he  was  to  come  to 
the  front  again,  in  the  crisis  of  the  Mutiny  — a time  which  was 
likely  to  bring  out,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter  that  it  did,  some  of 
his  very  finest  and  of  his  very  worst  qualities. 

At  Dera  Ghazi  Khan,  finding  that  there  were  complaints 
about  the  land-tax,  the  summary  assessment  of  which  had  been 
lately  fixed  by  the  very  popular  Deputy-Commissioner,  Van 
Cortlandt,  the  Chief  Commissioner  went  carefully  into  the 
matter  himself,  reduced  the  assessment  still  further  by  thirty 
thousand  rupees,  and  so  brought  contentment  in  his  train. 
‘The  people  here,’  he  remarks,  ‘are  on  the  whole  very  well 
disposed,  quite  a different  lot  from  those  about  Peshawur.’  A 
just  observation,  and  one  which,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  goes 
to  the  root  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Scinde  and  Punjab 
frontier  schools.  For  the  people  of  the  Southern  Derajat,  and 
still  more  those  bordering  on  the  Scinde  desert,  are  of  Beluchi 
origin,  are  of  a mild  character,  and  can  be  managed  solely  or 
chiefly  by  moral  methods.  The  tribes  of  the  Northern  Dera- 
jat are  of  Pathan  origin,  restless,  fierce,  and  untamable,  and 
recognise  only  the  right  of  the  strong  to  restrain  them.  The 
Chief  Commissioner’s  general  impression  of  our  Trans-Indus 
possessions  was  not  very  favourable.  He  writes  to  Colonel 
Sleeman  : — 

I have  been  making  a tour  of  this  frontier.  The  country  is  desolate 
and  the  people  poor  and  wild,  but  generally  docile  and  well-behaved. 
Financially  the  lands  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Indus  arc  not  worth  hav- 
ing ; but  we  require  both  sides  of  the  river  to  keep  the  Punjab  quiet, 
and  hold  our  own  against  external  aggression.  The  people  below  Kohat 
are  much  less  fanatical  and  hostile  than  those  of  the  Peshawur  valley. 

. . . The  whole  of  the  Derajat  is  a wretched  country,  until  you  pass 


1 852—53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


391 


the  Paizoo  range.1  South  of  that  line  the  soil  is  a strong  clay,  as  hard 
and  as  level  as  a deal  board,  and  without  a sign  of  vegetation.  Without 
water  the  land  is  not  cultivable.  Murwut  looks  pretty  well.  We  like 
the  look  of  Bunnoo  : it  is  a garden  of  Eden  adjoining  a wilderness. 

The  Deputy-Commissioner  of  this  garden  of  Eden  and  of 
the  adjoining  'wilderness,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  was 
the  redoubtable  ‘ Warden  of  the  Marches,’  with  whom  his  chief 
had  been  obliged  to  keep  up  so  brisk  a correspondence  during 
the  preceding  year.  Evidences  of  the  good  work  which  John 
Nicholson  had  done,  in  peace  as  in  war.  might  be  seen  on 
every  side,  and  the  faithful  companion  of  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner through  the  long  and  rough  four  months’  march,  which 
was  now  nearing  its  end,  still  recalls  the  pleasure  which  his 
society  gave  to  her  and  to  her  husband,  and  the  tender  care 
which  the  chivalrous  protector  of  her  two  elder  daughters  on 
their  voyage  to  England,  now  lavished,  in  all  the  difficulties  of 
the  march,  on  the  still  younger  child  who  accompanied  her. 

At  Kohat,  whose  turbulent  inhabitants,  since  the  military 
operations  of  the  preceding  autumn,  had  been  peaceful  enough, 
the  news  reached  John  Lawrence  that  Edmondstone,  the  Fi- 
nancial Commissioner,  who  had  proved,  as  he  said,  ‘ a tower  of 
strength  ’ to  him  in  the  Punjab,  had  been  appointed  Foreign 
Secretary  to  Lord  Dalhousie.  There  succeeded  to  his  place 
John  Lawrence’s  dear  friend,  probably  the  dearest  friend  he  ever 
had,  Donald  Macleod.  The  letter  he  wrote  to  him  on  his  appoint- 
ment is  not  a little  characteristic  of  the  two  men  and  of  the  rela- 
tions that  existed  between  them. 

Rawul  Pindi : April  15,  1854. 

My  dear  Macleod, — I was  glad  to  get  your  letter  of  the  nth,  and  to 
find  you  were  coming  over  to  Lahore  to  take  charge.  I am  sure  you 
will  make  a famous  Financial  Commissioner.  If  you  only  firmly  resolve 
to  postpone  nothing  that  can  be  disposed  of  at  the  time,  daily  getting 
through  what  comes  before  you,  there  will  be  nothing  further  to  desire. 
You  do  not,  I think,  give  yourself  fair  play.  You  are  like  a racer  who, 
instead  of  starting  off  directly  the  signal  is  given,  waits  until  the  others 
have  got  well  ahead  before  he  commences  his  running  ; or,  perhaps, 
what  is  nearer  the  mark,  you  only  consent  to  make  play  when  you  have 
packed  a good  maund  of  traps  on  your  back.  Now  pray  excuse  these 
ungracious  remarks.  There  is  no  man  who  regards  and  respects  you 
more  than  I do,  or  who  could  be  better  pleased  to  have  you  as  a col- 
league. I see  but  one  speck  on  your  official  escutcheon,  and,  like  an 
officious  friend,  desire  to  rub  it  out. 


1 S.  boundary  of  Bunnoo.  in  recent  maps  called  Sheik  Boodeen  Hills. 


392 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i852-53 


The  ‘ Cunctator,’  as  John  Lawrence  used  aptly  enough  to  call 
him,  however  willing  he  might  be,  was  unable,  at  his  time  of 
life,  to  change  his  tactics.  But,  if  it  could  not  be  said  of  him, 
as  of  his  prototype  at  Rome,  that  he  4 saved  the  State  by  his 
delay,’  he  certainly  contributed  to  that  end  by  the  equanimity, 
the  confidence,  and  the  happiness  which  his  mere  .presence — the 
presence  of  one  whom  John  Lawrence  always  regarded  as  one 
of  the  highest  types  of  human  goodness — gave  to  the  man  who, 
in  the  struggle  that  was  coming  on,  was  to  do  most  to  save  it. 

From  Rawul  Pindi,  where  the  steps  taken  by  Edward  Thorn- 
ton, the  Commissioner,  for  placing  his  civil  station,  his  jails, 
his  cutcherries,  and  the  cantonments,  all  in  close  proximity  to 
each  other,  earned  John  Lawrence’s  warm  approval,  he  went 
with  his  wife  and  daughter,  who  were  both  of  them  ill  from  the 
fatigue  and  exposure  of  this  Derajat  march,  to  the  new  hill 
station  of  Murri.  It  was  his  first  visit  to  the  place,  but  it  was 
by  no  means  to  be  his  last ; for  the  orders  of  his  doctors,  and 
the  urgent  representations  of  Lord  Dalhousie  as  to  what  was 
due,  if  not  to  himself,  at  least  to  the  public  good,  constrained 
him  henceforward  to  spend  a considerable  part  of  each  hot 
season  there.  His  reluctance  to  comply  with  the  requests  of 
friends  and  doctors,  and  even  of  the  Governor-General,  will 
appear  natural  enough  when  we  recollect  the  stern  restraint  he 
had  always  hitherto  placed  on  his  own  inclinations,  as  well  as 
on  those  of  his  subordinates,  to  avail  themselves,  during  the 
fury  of  the  summer  of  those  ‘delectable  mountains’  which’ 
looked  down  so  invitingly  from  the  North.  It  was  an  uphill 
and  a thankless  struggle,  which  he  could  not  afford  to  abandon 
now,  merely  because  times  had  changed  with  him,  and  because 
it  would  seem  doubly  ungracious  to  refuse  to  others  what  he 
accepted  for  himself.  His  subordinates  often  thought  him  un- 
reasonably stern  in  this  matter,  but  the  struggle  was  generally 
carried  on  with  good  temper  on  both  sides,  and  no  one  ever 
questioned  his  public  spirit  or  the  sincerity  of  his  convictions. 
Indeed,  it  was  still  his  own  inclination  to  slip  away  from  the 
hills  to  the  plains  even  in  the  height  of  summer,  though  when 
he  did  so  it  was  always  to  the  injury  of  his  health,  and  some- 
times, as  we  shall  see,  to  the  danger  of  his  life.  I must  give  a 
specimen  or  two  of  his  letters  on  this  subject.  Here  is  a letter 
to  Montgomery  which  refers  to  a refusal  he  had  felt  it  his 
duty  to  give  to  one  of  his  Commissioners  who  was  a friend  of 
both. 


852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


393 


I am  sorry  that is  riled  at  the  tone  of  my  refusal.  It  would  seem 

to  me  that  it  was  the  refusal  itself  which  really  annoyed  him.  But,  be 
it  the  one  or  the  other,  I could  not  help  it.  What  I did  was  done  on 
public  grounds.  In  such  questions  1 have  no  friends  or  enemies ; at 
least  I try  not  to  have  them.  As  regards  the  Chumba  affair,  if  I was  cap- 
able of  acting  against  my  own  convictions  it  would  have  been  for  your- 
self. I voted  against  Chumba  being  annexed  to  Lahore  when  you  were 
Commissioner,  and  I am  convinced  that  1 acted  rightly.  While  I admit 
the  benefit  which  officers  derive  from  going  to  the  hills,  I cannot  fail  to 
see  how  injurious  it  is  to  the  public  service.  As  a rule,  Commissioners 
who  have  hill  retreats  would  be  there  the  whole  season.  They  begin  by 
putting  in  their  noses  like  the  fox,  and  end  by  slipping  in  afterwards 
their  bodies  and  even  their  tails.  Donald  is  the  only  man  who  seems 
to  me  to  have  acted  rightly  in  this  respect. 

Another  letter  to  a friend  to  whom  he  was  much  attached, 
but  who  was  disposed  to  offend  in  like  manner,  is  of  a later 
date,  but  may  be  inserted  here. 


Camp,  Gukhur : November  22,  1855. 

My  dear  Barnes, — I am  sorry  I shall  not  see  you  before  you  go  home, 
as  there  is  no  knowing  if  we  may  ever  meet  again.  I think,  on  the  whole, 
you  have  made  a good  Commissioner  of  the  Cis-Sutlej,  but  not  equal  to 
Edmondstone.  He  is  a greater  workman  than  you  will  ever  be.  You  rely 
too  much  on  your  facility  in  despatching  work,  and  do  not  give  yourself 
fair  play.  Your  forte  is  the  revenue  line,  not  the  judicial.  You  are  too 
impulsive  for  the  latter.  Still  Colvin  might  get  a worse  judge.  If  you 
come  back  to  me  I shall  be  glad  ; if  you  get  promotion  elsewhere  I shall 
be  content. 

But,  if  five  months  are  not  sufficient  for  you  in  the  hills,  how  will  you 
manage  when  you  have  to  remain  at  Agra  for  eleven  ? I am  sorry  to  find 
you  are  vexed  at  my  conduct  about  the  hills,  but  you  will,  I hope,  give 
me  credit  for  acting  on  public  grounds.  I do  not  think  you  can  do  your 
duty  as  it  should  be  done  and  stay  up  longer.  I do  not  think  that  any- 
one ought  to  have  more  than  that  period  in  the  hills.  I could  not  see 
you  spending  seven  months  there,  and  make  the  Commissioners  of  the 
Jhelum  and  Cis-Sutlej  divisions  come  down  sooner.  I never  go  up  my- 
self before  the  first  of  May,  and,  with  the  exception  of  this  year,  have 
always  hastened  down  early  in  October.  Indeed,  last  year  I nearly  killed 
myself  by  coming  down  for  two  months  in  the  middle  of  the  hot  season. 
Now,  I can  do  my  work  in  the  hills  much  more  conveniently  than  a Com- 
missioner, and,  in  coming  down  as  I do,  it  is  much  more  for  example’s 
sake  than  for  work.  You  and  many  others  think  that  I am  a hard  task- 
master. Perhaps  I am;  but  my  position  requires  it.  Th  & dole e far  niente 
will  not  answer  here.  I think  that  the  Commissioners  of  the  Cis-Sutlej 
and  Lahore  divisions  have  more  work  than  they  can  thoroughly  perform. 
I have  told  Government  so  twice.  But  the  Government  will  not  admit  it, 


394 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


*852-53 


and  therefore  I must  try  and  get  the  work  done  somehow  or  other.  I as- 
sure you  my  position  is  no  bed  of  roses.  If  I had  the  means  I would  go 
home  to-morrow. 

‘ Ah  ! Barnes,’  he  would  remark  in  conversation  to  this  same 
correspondent,  with  that  humorous  mixture  of  praise  and  blame 
which  came  so  well  from  him — ‘ Ah  ! Barnes,  you  are  a very 
clever  fellow  ; you  can  get  through  in  half  an  hour  what  it 
would  take  most  of  us  an  hour  to  do  equally  well  ; and  if  only 
you  would  not  insist  on  getting  through  it  in  a quarter  of  an 
hour  instead  of  half  an  hour,  you  would  do  excellently!’  It 
would  have  been  difficult  to  hit  off  the  strength  and  the  weak- 
ness of  his  friend  more  neatly. 

The  Chief  Commissioner’s  own  work  went  on  unremittingly 
at  Murri,  in  the  house  of  three  small  rooms  which  sufficed  for 
his  simple  wants  and  those  of  his  wife.  ‘ I have  been  very  busy,’ 
he  writes  on  June  3 : ‘my  pen  scarcely  ever  out  of  my  hand. 
Certainly,  writing  long  reports  is  very  wearisome  and  my  eyes 
are  not  what  they  used  to  be.  I fear,  if  I live  to  be  fifty,  I shall 
be  blind.’  A few  days  previously,  on  May  27,  a fourth  son-*- 
Charles  Napier — had  been  born,  and,  as  soon  as  the  mother  was 
sufficiently  recovered  for  him  to  leave  her,  the  father  slipped 
away  to  Lahore.  But  it  was  a liberty  for  which  he  soon  had  to 
pay  the  penalty,  for  he  was  attacked  by  a severe  fever  which  put 
his  life  in  danger.  His  medical  attendants  were,  at  first,  afraid 
to  resort  to  their  usual  remedy  of  bleeding,  and  it  was  only  at 
his  own  urgent  request  that  they  consented  to  open  a vein  in 
his  arm.  This  relieved  his  head,  but  the  positive  orders  of  his 
doctors  and  his  extreme  weakness  warned  him  to  make  his  way 
back  to  Murri  as  soon  as  possible.  The  concern  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie  when  he  heard  of  his  Lieutenant’s  narrow  escape  was 
extreme,  and  his  warning  against  similar  escapades  for  the  fu- 
ture will  illustrate  what  I have  said  about  the  hills — 

September  7. 

Murri,  I hope,  will  restore  you  fully  and  at  once.  Next  year  you  must 
on  no  account  come  down  into  the  plains  after  the  hot  weather  begins. 
Whatever  you  do,  or  leave  undone,  pray  keep  your  health. 

And,  again,  two  days  later — 

I now  regret  very  sincerely  that  I did  not  urge  you  strongly  against 
quitting  Murri  to  return  to  Lahore  during  the  heat.  But  your  health  has, 
of  late,  been  so  good  that  the  thought  of  risk  to  it  during  this  temporary 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


395 


visit  to  the  plains  did  not  present  itself  to  me  at  the  time.  I can  now 
only  repeat  the  injunctions  which  I laid  upon  you  in  my  last  letter,  that 
next  summer  you  are  to  take  advantage  of  the  hill  stations,  so  numerous 
in  every  part  of  your  jurisdiction,  and  are  not  again  to  risk  your  health, 
on  which  so  much  of  the  public  interest  depends.  For  the  present  I 
would  urge  you  to  take  complete  rest,  if  you  can — at  any  rate,  as  far  as 
you  can — until  your  health  and  strength  are  again  revived.  Never  mind 
the  Punjab  Report,  or  any  other  Report,  but  coddle  yourself,  turn  idler, 
and  get  yourself  up  again. 

It  was  during  this  visit  to  Lahore  that  John  Lawrence  was 
able  to  effect  a change  which  he  had  long  desired,  which  relieved 
him  of  a cruel  amount  of  work  and  worry,  and  gave  him  a co- 
adjutor whose  ready  pen  had  already  done  him  good  service, 
and  who  was,  in  the  capacity  of  his  Secretary,  for  many  years  to 
come,  to  be  on  the  most  intimate  terms  with  him.  How  this 
came  about  requires  explanation.  On  the  first  establishment 
of  the  Board,  Lord  Dalhousie,  in  a moment  of  apparent  aberra- 
tion, had  appointed  Philip  Melvill  to  be  its  under-Secretary. 
He  was  a man  of  ability  and  education,  and  always  pleasant  to 
deal  with,  but,  as  the  result  showed,  he  proved  to  be  quite  un- 
fitted by  his  training  and  aptitudes  for  this  particular  post. 
Christian,  the  Secretary  who  had  been  selected  by  the  Board, 
had,  after  a very  short  term  of  service,  gone  back  to  the  North- 
West  ; and,  then  in  a second,  and  less  excusable  moment  of  ab- 
erration, Lord  Dalhousie  had  given  Melvill  his  place.  Thus  the 
post,  of  all  others  in  the  Punjab,  which  ought  to  have  been  left 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Board,  was  the  very  one — and  almost 
the  only  one — in  the  filling  up  of  which  they  had  not  been  al- 
lowed to  have  any  voice. 

In  June,  1851,  as  I have  already  related,  John  Lawrence  had 
paid  a visit  to  Lord  Dalhousie  at  Simla,  had  there  met  Richard 
Temple,  then  a very  young  civilian,  and,  stopping  at  Jullundur, 
on  his  way  back,  had  examined  the  work  done  by  him  as  set- 
tlement officer  of  the  district.  ‘ Here  is  the  very  man,’  he  said, 
in  conversation  with  his  friends,  ‘ that  we  want  as  Secretary. 
He  can  understand  what  I say,  and  put  it  into  first-rate  form. 
But  what  can  we  do  ? Melvill  has  been  put  upon  us  for  ever 
by  Lord  Dalhousie.’  And,  writing  shortly  afterwards  to  the 
Governor-General  himself,  he  thus  expresses  his  opinion  of  the 
work  which  he  had  examined  : ‘Young  Temple  has  just  finished 
the  settlement  at  Jullundur ; and,  during  the  fifteen  months  he 
has  been  there,  has  not  only  worked  in  first-rate  style,  but  has 


396 


• LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


i852-53 


done  an  amount  of  work  which  scarcely  any  other  three  men  in 
the  country  could  have  done.  He  is  pre-eminently  the  most 
rising  officer  in  the  Punjab.’ 

Unfortunately  this  ‘ most  rising  officer  in  the  Punjab’  had 
been  soon  afterwards  recalled  to  the  North-West  by  Thomason  ; 
but,  on  the  urgent  representation  of  John  Lawrence,  which  I 
have  already  quoted,'  that  a new  country  must  require  Temple’s 
energy  more  than  an  old  one,  Thomason  consented  to  surren- 
der him,  and  Temple  was  forthwith  appointed  to  the  revenue 
settlement  of  the  Rechna  Doab.  Passing  through  Lahore,  in 
January,  1853,  on  his  way  to  his  new  post,  he  saw  there,  for  the 
first  time,  ‘the  great  triumvirate,’  and  often  ‘danced  before 
Herod,’  as  his  future  chief  used  to  describe  his  frequent  visits 
to  him.  He  worked  in  the  Rechna  Doab  as  hard  as  he  had 
worked  in  the  Jullundur,  and  when  Lord  Dalhousie  suggested 
that  a Report  should  be  drawn  up,  showing  what  had  been  done 
in  the  Punjab  since  annexation,  the  thoughts  of  the  members 
instinctively  turned  towards  him.  The  duty  properly  belonged 
to  Melvill,  who  tried  his  hand  at  it.  But  the  results  of  his  efforts 
were  so  inadequate,  that  by  general  consent — that  of  Lord  Dal- 
housie as  well  as  of  the  Board — a deus  ex  machina  was  called  in, 
in  the  shape  of  the  young  settlement  officer.  The  summons 
reached  Temple  late  in  the  evening ; and  that  same  night  he 
rode  down  from  Shekarghur  to  Lahore,  a distance  of  seventy  or 
eighty  miles,  fording  many  swollen  streams  in  his  way.  The 
ride  was  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  was,  in  itself,  likely  to 
recommend  him  still  more  strongly  to  his  future  chief. 

The  task  before  Temple  was  delicate  and  difficult.  Portions 
of  the  Report  had  been  already  written  by  Henry,  portions 
also  by  John.  The  susceptibilities  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  as  well 
as  of  each  of  the  three  members  of  the  Board,  had  to  be  con- 
sulted, and  this,  as  all  alike  were  anxious  to  impress  upon  him, 
without  the  slightest  sacrifice  of  truth.  However,  the  task  was 
accomplished,  and  in  a manner  which  made  its  publication  to 
be  almost  an  epoch  in  the  literary  history  of  India.  At  all 
events,  it  was  an  epoch  in  the  way  in  which  that  history  could 
be  regarded  by  outsiders.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  before 
its  appearance,  no  document  of  the  kind  had  ever  been  read 
extensively,  either  in  India  or  in  England.  Such  reports  as 
had  been  published  were  unreadable  and  almost  unintelligible, 


1 See  page  319. 


1S52-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


397 


thickly  interlarded  with  Hindustani  and  Persian  words,  and  the 
whole  put  together  in  the  most  forbidding  shape.  Temple  thus 
proved  to  be  the  rates  sacer,  without  whom  much  that  the  Law- 
rences had  done  might  have  remained  unrecorded  and  unknown 
beyond  the  pigeon-holes  of  a Government  office,  or  the  limits 
of  the  province  which  was  immediately  affected. 

Temple  had  done  the  Secretary’s  work,  but  he  was  not  yet  to 
be  Secretary  ; and  even  when  the  Board  was  abolished  and  was 
succeeded  by  a Chief  Commissioner,  the  Governor-General 
still  refused  to  sanction  any  change.  In  vain  did  John  Law- 
rence write  to  Courtenay  and  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  representing 
the  vast  amount  of  unnecessary  work  and  worry  which  was 
thus  thrown  upon  him,  and  begging  that  a Residency,  or  any 
other  post  which  was  suitable  to  his  abilities,  might  be  given  to 
Melvill.  In  the  period  of  the  Board  he  had  had  to  do  much  of 
the  Secretary’s  work  as  well  as  his  own.  And  now,  to  make 
matters  worse,  the  offer  which  was  made  to  Temple  by  Colvin  of 
a high  post  at  Agra,  made  it  likely  that  the  man  on  whom  he  had 
set  his  heart  as  his  future  Secretary,  would,  after  all,  be  perma- 
nently withdrawn  from  the  Punjab.  He  treated  the  matter 
however  with  characteristic  magnanimity.  ‘ Temple,’  he  wrote 
to  Courtenay,  ‘ is  the  man  whom  I have  long  wished  for  as  Sec- 
retary in  Melvill’s  room,  if  only  I could  have  helped  the  latter 
to  a snug  berth.  As  I cannot  do  this,  I hope  the  Governor- 
General  will  let  Temple  go  ; for  it  is  hard  to  prevent  an  able 
man  getting  on,  merely  because  one  wants  him  one’s  self.’  But 
the  Governor-General  peremptorily  refused  permission  ; and 
the  death  of  Melvill,  which  happened  soon  afterwards — a man 
for  whom  John  Lawrence  had  always  felt  a great  regard,  and 
had  treated  throughout  with  exemplary  patience,  and  even 
tenderness — at  last  gave  Temple  the  opening  for  which  he  was 
so  well  fitted. 

It  was  in  July,  1854,  shortly  before  the  severe  attack  of  fever 
which  I have  described,  that  Temple  arrived  to  enter  on  his 
work.  What  was  said  and  done  at  the  first  meeting  between 
the  two  men  I am  able  to  relate  on  the  best  authority,  and  it  is 
highly  characteristic.  ‘ John  Lawrence,’  said  Temple  to  me  in 
conversation,  ‘ was  very  ill  with  headache,  lying  down  in  a dark 
room,  and  much  depressed.  Hearing  me  enter  the  outer  room, 
he  called  out  abruptly,  “ So  glad  you  are  come  ; just  look  at 
those  letters  ; ” and  said  no  more.  In  the  afternoon  he  was 
better,  and  able  to  leave  his  room.  “ Very  glad,”  he  said,  “ to 


398 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


have  got  you  in  your  proper  place  at  last  ! I am  glad  of  your 
opinion,  and,  of  course,  very  glad  of  your  pen  ; but  remember, 
it  will  be  my  policy,  and  my  views  : not  yours.  Your  day  may 
come — it  is  mine  now  ; every  dog  will  have  its  day.”  ’ ‘ He 
seemed,’ remarks  Sir  Richard  Temple,  ‘to  be  unapproachably 
beyond  me  then,  and  so  still  he  does  ; but,  in  one  sense,  his 
words  came  true,  for  I have  filled  offices  similar  to  his  since.’ 

And  here,  perhaps,  I may  fitly  insert  a letter  which  I have 
received  from  Sir  Richard  Temple,  giving  me  some  of  his  earli- 
est impressions  of  his  new  chief. 

I essay,  as  requested  by  you,  to  note  some  among  my  recollections  of 
John  Lawrence’s  mode  of  conversing  with  those  who  were  within  his 
inner  circle  ; though  I cannot,  in  the  space  of  a single  letter,  do  any- 
thing like  justice  to  the  memory  of  my  revered  master. 

It  was  one  day  in  the  first  half  of  June,  1851,  that  I was  introduced  by 
George  Barnes  to  John  Lawrence,  who  was  then  living  in  a picturesquely 
situated  house  on  the  spur  of  Mount  Jacko,  in  the  centre  of  Simla.  You 
can  imagine  the  interest  and  curiosity  with  which  I went  to  this,  my  first 
interview,  with  the  man  whose  repute  had  left  so  deep  an  impression  on 
the  public  mind,  and  at  whose  instance  I had  broken  away  from  my 
comfortable  anchorage  in  Hindustan  and  had  embarked  on  a new  career 
in  the  then  unsettled  Punjab.  I had,  in  my  imagination,  pictured  Law- 
rence as  an  iron-looking  man,  somewhat  severe  in  tone  and  aspect,  with 
a massive  brow,  straight  features,  and  compressed  lips,  uttering  few 
words,  and  those  only  of  a dry  and  practical  import.  His  conversation, 
I expected,  would  tend  towards  statecraft  or  political  economy,  and  would 
proceed  to  the  point  and  nothing  but  the  point.  Great  was  my  surprise, 
then,  on  finding  that  he  had  an  open  countenance,  an  expansive  fore- 
head, a frank,  genial  bearing,  and  a vivacious  manner  of  conversation. 
The  lips,  so  far  from  being  closely  set,  were  parted  constantly  by  smiles 
and  laughter.  The  conversation  turned  on  the  state  of  the  country  be- 
tween Simla  and  the  Punjab,  on  the  rainy  season  which  was  just  setting 
in  favourably  for  agriculture,  and  on  the  incidents  of  travel  from  the 
valley  of  the  Sutlej  to  the  heights  of  the  Himalayas,  as  illustrative  of  the 
character  of  the  country  and  the  ways  of  the  people.  He  was  full  of 
animation,  and  seemed  anxious  to  make  me  feel  at  ease.  It  was  only 
when  the  features  occasionally  relaxed,  after  the  play  of  light  and  fancy 
during  conversation,  that  I could  perceive  the  full  strength  and  solidity 
of  his  head,  and  the  lines  which  anxious  thought  and  energetic  resolve 
had  marked  on  his  face.  He  concluded  a somewhat  diversified  discourse 
by  asking  me  one  or  two  questions  about  my  settlement  work,  and  fixed 
a day  on  which  I was  to  bring  my  papers  for  his  inspection.  During  the 
several  interviews  I had  with  him  afterwards  regarding  settlement  work 
he  displayed  not  only  the  strong  grasp  of  economic  facts,  and  the  quick 
insight  into  elaborate  statistics  which  might  have  been  expected  from  his 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


399 


stirring  antecedents,  but  also  more  of  patience  and  quiet  consideration 
than  a young  officer  would  ordinarily  expect  to  receive  from  so  eminent 
a superior. 

Shortly  afterwards  he  told  me  that  the  Governor-General  (Lord  Dal- 
housie)  had  asked  him  to  bring  me  with  him  to  dine  quietly  at  Govern- 
ment House  ; and,  no  other  guests  being  present,  I had  a full  opportu- 
nity of  observing  the  two  great  men  engaged  in  a discussiofi  which  fell 
upon  the  feudal  tenures  of  the  Cis-Sutlej  States,  then  being  settled  by 
Government.  Lord  Dalhousie  had  the  staid  yet  bland  demeanour  ordi- 
narily associated  with  the  statesman.  Lawrence,  though  also  self-pos- 
sessed, was  full  of  animation  and  vivacity,  urging  with  much  earnestness 
some  views  which  Lord  Dalhousie  did  not  seem  wholly  to  accept.  After 
dinner  they  sat  again  conversing  on  a sofa.  Lawrence  was  telling  some 
of  his  own  experiences,  and  Lord  Dalhousie  was  listening  with  amused 
attention.  I understood,  at  the  time,  that  Lord  Dalhousie  used  to  praise 
Lawrence’s  official  writings  as  being  lifelike  and  as  instantaneously  con- 
veying distinct  ideas  to  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

I know  not  how  far  the  records  at  a biographer’s  disposal  indicate  the 
play  of  wit,  the  flight  of  fancy,  the  originality  of  illustration,  the  raciness 
of  expression,  the  unpremeditated  eloquence,  which  imparted  a fra- 
grance and  flavour  to  Lawrence’s  intimate  conversation  with  those  who 
were  constantly  about  him.  These  qualities  were  unfailing  when  he  was, 
as  it  were,  * off  duty,’  however  reserved  or  grave  he  might  be  when  he 
was  actually  at  work.  He  used  largely  the  well-known  method  of  illus- 
tration whereby  the  features  of  a country  are  described  by  metaphors 
drawn  from  human  characters,  and,  vice  versa,  the  disposition  and  tem- 
per of  persons  are  set  forth  by  analogies  derived  from  the  material  world. 
Though  he  had  not  cultivated,  and  hardly  appreciated,  the  more  delicate 
points  in  landscape,  or  the  tamer  beauties  of  nature,  yet  if  placed  in  any 
scene  which  was 

* stern  and  wild, 

Meet  nurse  for  a poetic  child,’ 

he  would,  at  once,  display  something  of  the  artist’s  sentiment  and  the 
poet’s  instinct.  I have  heard  him  describe  the  crossing  of  the  Indus, 
the  valley  of  Peshawur,  the  mouth  of  the  Khyber  Pass,  the  rocks  of  the 
Kohat  defile,  the  floods  of  the  Sutlej,  the  thunder-storms  of  the  Hima- 
layas, in  brief,  graphic,  pithy — though  perhaps  rugged — sentences, 
which  few  men  would  surpass.  He  had  a discriminating  insight  for  all 
that  related  to  animal  life.  He  would  allude  in  striking  terms  to  the 
noteworthy  creatures  of  the  East — the  elephant,  the  tiger,  the  deer,  the 
buffalo,  the  eagle,  the  hawk.  He  regarded  the  live-stock  of  an  Indian 
farm — the  heifers,  the  steers,  the  lambs,  the  kids — with  the  affection  of 
a true  amateur.  He  had  a sound  knowledge  of  horse-breeding  in  India, 
whether  in  studs  or  in  villages,  and  it  used  to  be  interesting  to  hear  him 
criticise  the  colts  and  fillies,  and  discuss  their  build,  nourishment,  train- 
ing, temper,  and  docility.  It  were  superfluous  to  say,  after  his  practice 


400 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


as  a settlement  officer,  that  he  had  an  amount  of  discernment  respecting 
the  varieties  of  soil,  the  quality  of  growing  crops,  the  effect  of  weather 
upon  the  harvests,  the  merits  and  demerits  of  native  husbandry,  which 
has  never  been  excelled  by  any  Englishman  in  India.  Nobody  could 
ride  with  him  across  the  fields  in  the  busy  season  without  deriving  in- 
struction as  to  what  should  be  observed.  It  was  a branch  of  his  great 
profession  to  perceive  at  a glance  the  material  condition  of  the  natives 
of  all  ranks  and  callings.  He  was  benevolently  keen  to  note  the  signs  of 
poverty  or  distress  in  the  humblest  classes,  whereon  he  would  often  di- 
late. It  was  interesting  to  walk  with  him  through  the  rough  lanes  and 
alleys  of  a large  village,  and  to  hear  his  remarks  regarding  its  strong  and 
weak  points,  its  capabilities  and  resources.  Insight  into  human  charac- 
ter being  one  of  his  foremost  faculties,  and  the  study  of  the  native  dis- 
position in  its  practical  aspect  having  been  one  of  his  first  duties,  his 
knowledge  of  Indian  idiosyncracies,  as  affecting  the  business  of  life, 
was  comprehensive,  without,  perhaps,  being  what  is  commonly  termed 
profound.  To  converse  with  him  on  these  topics  was  to  be  introduced 
to  a separate  world  of  opinion  and  feeling.  He  did  not  indeed  appear  to 
have  turned  his  attention  towards  the  philosophical,  ideal,  and  meta- 
physical phases  of  Hindu  thought.  But  of  the  priestly  and  fanatical 
classes  among  Mohammedans  he  had  a vivid  and  exact  appreciation, 
which  he  would  embody  in  forcible  language. 

Though  not  at  all  satirical  or  cynical,  he  delighted  to  mark  good-hu- 
mouredly the  ridiculous  side  of  everything.  His  intimate  friends  prob- 
ably knew'  him  to  be  a laughter-loving  man  to  a degree  little  imagined, 
perhaps,  by  the  outer  world.  He  thoroughly  acted,  however,  up  to  the 
maxim,  ‘ dulce  est  desipere  in  loco.'  When  on  horseback,  before  the 
public,  or  in  his  office  chair,  he  kept  his  humour  quiet,  but  at  meal- 
times, or  after  dinner,  or  in  his  walks,  or  when  talking  with  his  Secre- 
tary alone,  he  hardly  touched  upon  anything  without  investing  it  u'ith  an 
air  of  pleasantry.  As  I look  back  through  the  vista  of  years  to  the  time 
when  I saw  him  constantly — from  1851  to  1859 — his  bright,  gleaming  talk, 
and  the  sparkle  of  his  peculiar  wit,  seem  to  me  like  the  dvrjpidpov  yi\a<rpa 
which  the  author  ascribes  to  the  rippling  expanse  of  ocean. 

He  had  not  kept  up  his  college  studies  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to 
garnish  his  speeches  with  classical  quotations,  nor  did  he  usually  intro- 
duce matter  derived  from  any  English  poet  except  Shakespeare ; but 
Shakespearian  expressions  he  would  often  use  with  marked  emphasis. 
Many  of  his  witticisms  used  to  be  drawn  from  the  Persian  tongue,  of 
which  he  had  acquired  a competent  rather  than  a scholarlike  knowledge 
as  a young  man,  while  it  was  still  the  language  of  the  courts  and  the 
State  departments.  He  probably  had  but  scant  respect  for  the  ornate 
images  of  that  flowery  language,  and,  by  applying  them  to  current 
events  and  common  affairs,  he  often  succeeded  in  causing  a ludicrous 
effect.  Conversely,  he  would  sometimes  produce  a laughable  travesty 
by  free  renderings  from  the  Persian  into  English.  When  conversing 
with  natives  in  the  Hindustani  vernacular,  he  would  indulge  in  a vein  of 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


401 


good-humoured  banter,  which  would  provoke  them  to  actual  laughter, 
despite  their  habitual  abstinence  from  even  smiling  in  the  presence  of 
their  superiors. 

In  respect  of  graver  and  more  general  topics,  he  had  not  much  of 
varied  or  miscellaneous  reading.  Whatever  he  read  was  of  the  best 
kind,  and  was  well  assimilated  into  his  mind.  He  eagerly  perused 
Macaulay’s  chapters  on  Irish  history.  He  was  well  acquainted  with  at 
least  some  of  the  Napoleonic  campaigns,  and  of  the  Peninsular  battles. 
He  had  given  particular  attention  to  Hannibal’s  invasion  of  Italy,  and  to 
Alexander’s  march  to  and  from  India.  His  predilection  was  to  choose 
some  political  or  military  transaction  in  ancient  or  modern  history,  to 
examine  it  by  the  light  of  his  own  experience,  and  thus  to  pronounce  a 
practical  criticism.  If  time  and  opportunity  admitted  (which  was,  how- 
ever, rarely  the  case)  of  a group  of  historical  circumstances  being  com- 
prehended, and  of  the  map  being  spread  out,  then  the  listeners  would  be 
struck  by  the  clearness  of  his  insight  into  political  combinations,  and  by 
the  eye  with  which  he  was  gifted  for  seeing  the  bearing  of  geographical 
or  topographical  points  upon  the  events  under  consideration.  In  politi- 
cal economy,  though  he  had  not  much  studied  the  theoretical  or  techni- 
cal branches,  he  evinced  great  aptitude  for  banking  and  public  finance  ; 
also,  as  might  be  expected,  for  all  that  related  to  the  rent  and  tenure  of 
land,  especially  tenant  right.  In  works  of  fiction,  his  reading  was  not 
extensive.  He  would  confine  himself  to  novels  of  the  best  style,  and 
the  most  established  reputation.  I have  myself  sometimes  read  out  to 
him  of  an  evening  some  of  the  finest  passages  in  Walter  Scott’s  novels. 
As  his  years  advanced,  an  ever-increasing  study  of  the  Bible  caused  his 
language,  when  he  was  speaking  of  serious  subjects,  to  be  tinged,  un- 
consciously to  himself  perhaps,  with  Scriptural  phraseology. 

Some  may  wonder  why,  with  this  natural  power  in  conversation,  he 
succeeded  so  little  as  an  orator,  and  was,  indeed,  rather  averse  to  public 
speaking.  The  cause  was,  perhaps,  in  this  wise.  In  early  life,  and  in 
the  vigour  of  his  days,  he  never  had  an  occasion  to  speak  publicly  in 
English  ; his  speaking  was  in  the  Oriental  languages  among  the  natives 
in  court-houses  and  public  offices.  During  his  later  years,  when  occa- 
sions for  addressing  his  countrymen  came  upon  him  thick  and  fast,  he 
had  begun  to  suffer  from  head  symptoms  which  rendered  him  shy  and 
diffident  in  any  attempt  at  oratory.  In  the  summer  of  1854  he  had  a 
terrible  headache,  during  the  paroxysms  of  which  he  gasped  out  to  me, 
‘ I feel  as  if  rakshas'  (Hindu  mythological  giants)  ‘were  driving  prongs 
into  my  brain.’  Afterwards,  from  time  to  time,  he  assured  me  that  he 
had  an  affection  of  the  head,  which  seemed  like  a * current  of  air  rushing 
through  his  brain.’  Proof,  indeed,  of  his  ‘ unconquerable  will’  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  when  the  service  of  his  country  demanded  from 
him  the  utmost  exertion  of  brain-power,  he  was  often  depressed  by  these 
distressing  sensations  in  the  very  abode  of  the  intellect.  This  often 
lowered  his  spirits ; but  when  he  felt  better,  the  clouds  would  disperse, 
and  his  natural  buoyancy  and  joyousness  would  re-assert  themselves. 

Vol.  I. — 26 


402 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


Owing  to  early  habit,  he  was  much  more  confident  when  publicly  ad- 
dressing natives  in  their  vernacular.  And  he  was  one  of  the  very  few 
Governors-General  (if  indeed  he  was  not  the  only  Governor-General) 
who  repeatedly  spoke  long  orations  in  Hindustani  to  native  princes  and 
nobles  assembled  in  Durbars.  I had  not  the  happiness  of  seeing  him 
during  the  closing  years  of  his  life.  But,  whatever  his  public  utterances 
may  or  may  not  have  been  in  England,  I should  think  that,  even  up  to 
the  end,  his  conversation  could  not  have  failed  to  impress  anyone  with 
whom  he  was  familiarly  acquainted. 

The  relief  given  to  the  overworked  Chief  Commissioner  by 
the  appointment  of  Temple  as  his  Secretary  was  instantaneous. 
Without  it,  he  used  often  to  say  that  he  must  soon  have  broken 
down  altogether.  Where,  formerly,  he  would  have  been  obliged 
to  write  out  a document,  or  an  answer  to  a letter,  in  full,  if  he 
wished  it  to  be  adequately  done,  he  was  now  able, — as  all  hard- 
worked  public  men  ought  to  be  able, — to  scribble  down  a line 
or  two  across  it,  and  feel  sure  that  his  Secretary  would  catch  his 
meaning,  and  express  it  in  accurate  and  appropriate  language. 
Temple’s  eagerness  for  work,  and  aptitude  for  getting  through 
it,  exactly  suited  him.  They  worked  together  in  perfect  har- 
mony— harmony  which  could  not  fail  sometimes  to  rouse  the 
indignation  or  the  anger  of  applicants  for  places,  for  which  they 
were  not  judged  to  be  fit,  or  of  subordinates  who,  for  some  rea- 
son or  other,  had  incurred  the  displeasure  of  their  chief,  and 
would  not  be  satisfied  without  a personal  interview.  It  might 
have  been  possible,  they  thought,  to  deal  with  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner alone — for  sometimes  even  the  bull  in  the  arena, 
after  scattering  his  foes  this  way  and  that  by  his  irresistible 
charge,  received  a sly  or  a disabling  thrust  from  the  least  worthy 
of  his  assailants  ; but  it  was  impossible  to  get  over  the  two  men 
together — the  strong-fisted  chief  who  knew  his  mind  so  clearly, 
and  that  ‘detestable  Secretary,’  who  sat  there,  not  speaking  a 
word  himself,  but  catching  the  drift  of  all  his  chief’s  words  and 
thoughts,  and  then  writing  them  down  in  ‘ Templetonian  ’ Eng- 
lish. 

Almost  his  first  duty  as  Secretary  to  the  Chief  Commissioner, 
was  to  draw  up,  in  obedience  to  the  orders  of  Government,  a 
second  Report  of  the  progress  made  in  the  Punjab  during  the 
last  two  years.  It  necessarily  had  less  of  novelty  in  it  than  its 
predecessor,  but  alike  in  matter  and  in  manner  it  was  a worthy 
sequel  to  it  ; and,  as  a fitting  conclusion  to  this  chapter,  I quote 
its  concluding  paragraphs,  partly  as  a good  specimen  of  its  au- 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


403 


thor’s  style,  partly  as  an  appreciative  but  strictly  accurate  state- 
ment of  what  the  Chief  Commissioner  and  his  subordinates 
had  already  succeeded  in  doing  in  the  new  province. 

In  short,  while  the  remnants  of  a bygone  aristocracy  are  passing  from 
the  scene,  not  with  precipitate  ruin,  but  in  a gradual  and  mitigated  de- 
cline, on  the  other  hand,  the  hardy  yeoman,  the  strong-handed  peasant, 
the  thrifty  trader,  the  enterprising  capitalist,  are  rising  up  in  a robust 
prosperity,  to  be  the  durable  and  reliable  bulwarks  of  the  power  which 
protects  and  befriends  them.  Among  all  classes  there  is  a greater  re- 
gard for  vested  right,  for  ancestral  property,  for  established  principles. 
There  is  also  an  improved  social  morality  ; many  barbarous  customs  are 
being  eradicated,  and  the  position  of  the  female  sex  is  better  secured 
and  respected.  Among  all  ranks  there  is  a thirst  for  knowledge,  and  an 
admiration  for  the  achievements  of  practical  science.  But,  irrespective 
of  the  framework  of  society,  the  external  face  of  the  country  is  rapidly 
changing,  from  the  advance  of  vast  public  works,  both  for  communication 
and  irrigation  ; and  if  the  old  palatial  residences  are  decaying,  on  the 
other  hand  fine  cantonments  are  everywhere  springing  up,  and  the  pub- 
lic buildings,  both  civil  and  military,  as  regards  size  and  architecture, 
are  not  surpassed  at  any  stations  in  Upper  India.  The  alteration  is  ap- 
parent in  town  no  less  than  in  country.  The  aspect  of  the  streets  is  less 
gay  and  brilliant  than  before  ; but  the  improvements  in  drainage,  in 
paving,  in  the  laying  out  of  bazaars,  would  prove  to  the  commonest  ob- 
server that  an  era  of  solid  comfort  and  sanitary  cleanliness  had  com- 
menced. 

The  administrative  operations  undertaken  in  the  Punjab  have  in  great 
measure  been  designed  by  the  light  of  experience  in  older  provinces. 
The  frontier  is,  perhaps,  the  most  difficult  in  the  Empire  to  defend.  In 
the  force  and  vigour  of  its  police,  in  the  simplicity  and  precision  of  its 
civil  justice,  and  in  the  popularity  of  its  municipal  arrangements,  the 
Punjab  may  challenge  a comparison  with  any  province  in  India.  In 
other  respects,  the  crusade  against  Dacoity,  the  suppression  of  Thuggi, 
the  movement  against  infanticide,  the  tracking  of  criminals,  the  manage- 
ment and  economy  and  salubrity  of  the  jails,  the  productive  results  of 
prison  labour,  the  elaboration  of  the  revenue  system,  the  field  measure- 
ment, the  training  of  village  accountants,  the  registration  of  rights,  the 
interior  professional  survey,  the  census  of  the  population,  the  preparation 
of  statistics,  the  construction  of  roads,  bridges,  and  viaducts  in  the  face 
of  physical  difficulties,  the  excavation  of  canals,  the  arrangements  for 
the  great  highways,  the  erection  of  caravanserais  and  supply  depots,  the 
founding  of  dispensaries,  the  promulgation  of  educational  schemes,  the 
improvement  in  the  breed  of  cattle,  the  planting  of  trees,  the  pursuit  of 
agricultural  science,  the  geological  researches,  and  lastly  the  supervision 
of  finance, — all  these  things,  existing  in  the  Punjab,  may  have  had  their 
prototypes  and  examples  at  different  times  and  in  different  places,  some 


404 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1852-53 


in  the  North-Western  Provinces,  some  in  Bengal,  some  in  the  other 
Presidencies  ; but  the  Chief  Commissioner  almost  ventures  to  think  that 
in  few  provinces  can  a greater  range  and  variety  be  pointed  to  within  the 
short  space  of  five  years  than  in  the  Punjab.  He  can  hardly  hope  for 
entire  success  in  all  that  has  been  undertaken,  but  partial  or  occasional 
failure  will  never  have  a discouraging  effect.  Where  such  failure  has 
occurred,  it  has  been  portrayed  with  intended  fidelity  in  the  present  Re- 
port. It  is  easier  to  design  than  commence,  and  easier  to  commence 
than  to  complete.  No  one  can  be  more  aware  than  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner himself  of  the  necessity  for  untiring  perseverance  for  the  perfect- 
ing of  the  many  works  which  have  been  attempted  in  the  Punjab. 

What  wonder  that  Lord  Dalhousie  acknowledged  the  Report 
in  no  ordinary  official  phraseology?  On  November  21,  1854, 
he  writes  thus  : — 


[Private.] 

My  dear  Lawrence, — Your  second  Report  has  been  printed,  and  I 
have  just  circulated  it  with  a Minute  in  which  I have  endeavoured  to  do 
full  justice  (no  easy  matter)  to  the  exertions  and  achievements  of  your- 
self and  of  the  body  of  officers  serving  under  you  in  the  Punjab.  The 
course  of  events  was  not,  of  course,  unknown  to  me  ; but  it  is  refreshing 
and  invigorating  to  see  the  results  presented  in  a collective  form,  and  to 
mark  the  aggregate  of  progress  and  improvement  which  successive  years 
secure.  You  are  building  year  by  year  an  honourable  monument  of 
your  services,  and  I congratulate  you  upon  it  with  the  warmest  cordial- 
ity, and  with  the  most  sincere  regard.  The  Court  of  Directors,  I hope, 
will  be  induced  to  print  and  circulate  this  Report,  as  they  did  its  prede- 
cessor, with  great  effect. 

Ever,  my  dear  Lawrence, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Dalhousie. 

I have  preferred,  in  this  and  the  two  following  chapters,  to 
dwell  not  so  much  on  those  evidences  of  moral  and  material 
advancement  in  the  Punjab,  to  which  the  foregoing  extracts 
principally  refer,  as  on  other  and  more  personal  features  of 
John  Lawrence’s  administration.  It  is  these  last  which,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  show  us  most  of  the  man.  In  the  chapter  on 
‘ The  Work  of  the  Punjab  Board,’  I have  described  at  length 
the  moral  and  material  changes  which  the  province  owes  to  the 
Lawrences,  and  in  these  respects,  as  I have  already  pointed  out, 
the  work  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  was  one  of  expansion  and 
of  development,  rather  than  a new  departure.  But  it  may  be 
well  once  more  here  to  remind  the  reader,  that, — whether  John 


1852-53  CHIEF  COMMISSIONER  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 


405 


Lawrence  was  making  a progress  through  the  Derajat,  or  was 
stationary  in  the  Residency  at  Lahore,  or  in  his  three-roomed 
house  at  Murri  ; whether  he  was  corresponding  with  Lord  Dal- 
housie  on  matters  of  State  ; or  was,  to  all  appearance,  absorbed 
in  the  details  of  some  dispute  between  his  subordinates, — his 
finger  was  always  on  the  pulse  of  his  province  ; that  he  felt, 
that  he  stimulated,  that  he  controlled  every  throb  and  every 
movement  within  it,  and  that  the  great  work  of  peaceful  prog- 
ress never  slackened  even  for  a single  day. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


RELATIONS  WITH  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 

1854—1856. 

The  almost  exclusive  attention  which  the  Chief  Commissioner 
had  been  able,  during  the  first  eighteen  months  of  his  rule,  to 
give  to  the  internal  progress  of  the  Punjab,  had  been  inter- 
rupted, to  some  extent,  during  the  last  few  months  by  the 
Crimean  war  and  by  the  complications  to  which  it  was  feared 
it  might  give  rise  on  the  north-western  frontier.  John  Law- 
rence, as  his  letters  show,  had  watched  closely  the  steps  which 
led  up  to  that  war,  and  to  the  intervention  of  England  and 
France  ; and  when  Lord  Dalhousie,  in  deference  to  the  anxieties 
of  the  authorities  at  home,  bade  him,  half  humorously  and 
half  seriously,  ‘ be  on  the  look-out  for  Prince  Menschikoff  in 
the  Khyber,’  the  warning  was  re-echoed  by  Herbert  Edwardes, 
who  recommended  that  immediate  overtures  should  be  made  by 
us  to  the  Ameer  of  Afghanistan  for  a treaty  of  alliance,  and 
that  we  should  furnish  him  with  money  and  warlike  materials. 
Lord  Dalhousie  was,  at  first,  inclined  to  agree  with  Edwardes, 
but  was  strongly  resisted  by  John  Lawrence.  A few  extracts 
from  his  letters  will  show  how,  even  at  this  early  period,  John 
Lawrence  inclined  towards  the  frontier  policy  which  he  ever 
afterwards  advocated. 


To  Courtenay. 

January  7,  1854. 

I am  looking  out  sharp  towards  Kabul.  If  the  war  continues,  Russia 
will  no  doubt  intrigue  there.  But  intrigue  can  do  little  or  nothing  unless 
a Russo-Persian  army  invade  Afghanistan.  I see  not  what  is  on  the 
cards.  If  such  an  invasion  do  take  place  it  will  unite  the  Afghans  to- 
gether against  them.  Let  us  only  be  strong  on  this  side  the  passes,  and 
we  may  laugh  at  all  that  goes  on  in  Kabul.  I would  waste  neither  men 
nor  money  beyond.  If  the  Persians  attack  the  Turks  we  might  make  a 
diversion  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  as  Lord  Auckland  did  some  years  ago,  by 
occupying  the  island  of  Karrack,  or  some  such  name,  and  threatening  a 
descent. 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES.  407 

The  next  extract  has  a bearing  on  much  more  recent  events 
than  those  to  which  the  writer  refers. 


February  4,  1854. 

I see  by  the  last  mail  that  our  ancient  allies  the  Turks  are  going  to  the 
wall.  What  a reproach  this  will  be  to  England  ! Our  friendship,  inas- 
much as  it  has  encouraged  them  to  resist,  will  be  more  fatal  than  an 
honest  neutrality.  We  seem  to  me  to  be  playing  old  Nicholas’s  game 
for  him. 

The  letter  which  details  his  objections  to  Edwardes'  proposal 
for  an  alliance  with  the  Afghans,  in  the  shape  it  then  bore,  is 
of  more  than  passing  interest. 

Camp  Subki,  near  Bunnoo : March  24,  1854. 

My  dear  Lord, — I have  this  day  received  from  Edwardes  a copy  of  his 
letter  of  the  20th  to  your  Lordship.  I do  not  coincide  in  his  views  on  the 
conduct  of  Dost  Mohammed  Khan  of  Kabul  since  the  last  war.  . . . 

I fully  believe,  however,  that  the  Ameer  is  willing  to  be  on  terms  of 
amity  with  us  just  now.  It  would  greatly  strengthen  his  position  and  the 
chances  in  favour  of  his  sons  being  able  to  maintain  themselves  at  his 
death.  It  would  also  enable  him  to  turn  his  undivided  attention  toother 
quarters.  Such  friendly  relations  would  no  doubt  be  useful  to  us  in  tend- 
ing to  maintain  the  peace  of  the  border ; but  they  are  not  essential.  We 
can  hold  our  own  against  all  comers.  The  satisfaction  that  a treaty 
would  give  in  England  appears  to  me  the  strongest  argument  in  favour 
of  the  measure. 

There  seems,  however,  to  be  nothing  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs  in 
Europe  which  should  induce  us  to  adopt  the  extreme  measure  of  mak- 
ing overtures  to  the  Ameer.  I do  not  think  that  we  could  do  this  with- 
out loss  of  dignity  and  prestige  both  at  Kabul  and  in  India.  All  think- 
ing men  would  say  that  it  must,  indeed,  be  a terrible  crisis — Russia  must 
be  a frightful  foe — when  the  lords  of  the  East — the  English — backed  by 
France  and  Turkey,  hold  out  in  this  fashion  the  right  hand  of  fellowship 
to  Kabul ! We  may  satisfy  ourselves,  but  we  shall  never  satisfy  others, 
that  such  a course  is  not  dictated  by  a consciousness  of  weakness  ; and 
this  knowledge  will  induce  the  Ameer  to  make  claims  which  to  us  are  in- 
admissible. ...  By  the  last  news  from  Europe  I judge  that  Russia 
must  succumb  ; she  cannot  pretend  to  fight  all  Europe  banded  together 
against  her.  But  supposing  she  does  go  to  war,  she  will  have  full  em- 
ployment at  home.  Beyond  intrigue  she  can  attempt  nothing  in  Central 
Asia.  But  such  intrigues,  Major  Edwardes  thinks,  will  only  oblige  the 
Ameer  to  turn  to  us.  In  that  case,  why  not  wait  till  he  does  ? . . . 

There  is  another  point  which  is  worthy  of  consideration.  Dost  Moham- 
med is  an  old  man,  broken  in  health,  and  is  subject  to  severe  attacks  of 
illness,  and  has  twice  been  reported  dead.  Not  a year  ago  it  was  nothing 


408 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


but  carrying  him  through  the  Kabul  bazaar  which  made  his  people  be- 
lieve he  was  still  alive.  I do  not  think  he  can  live  long.  It  is  the  gene- 
ral— I may  almost  say  the  universal — opinion  that  his  sons  will  never  be 
able  to  maintain  themselves.  They  are  at  bitter  variance,  ready  to  cut 
each  other’s  throats  ; the  only  man  of  ability  among  them  is  Gholam 
Hyder,  and  he  is  deficient  in  courage.  Their  uncle,  Sultan  Mohammed, 
is  at  the  head  of  a strong  party  hostile  to  them.  The  chances  are  that, 
within  the  next  two  years,  they  are  all  exiles  and  refugees  with  us  at 
Peshawur. 

Foujdar  Khan  is  a man  of  character  and  ability,  and  a well-wisher  of 
ours.  I do  not  know  a native  who  might  be  more  safely  entrusted  with 
our  views  and  objects  than  he.  But  I am  not  prepared  to  recommend 
that  it  is  politic  to  send  any  native  to  Kabul  with  a message  from  the 
British  Government.  I do  not  think  that  a European  officer  could  go 
there  with  safety.  The  Ameer  would  no  doubt  deal  fairly,  but  there  are 
many  who  would  be  glad  to  destroy  the  Mission,  if  it  were  only  to  bring 
Dost  Mohammed  into  disgrace. 

I cannot  think  it  would  be  expedient  to  aid  the  Ameer  with  money 
under  any  circumstances.  Asiatics  do  not  understand  this  way  of  treat- 
ing them.  It  would  serve  but  to  increase  their  arrogance.  We  should 
have  increasing  demands  under  various  pretences,  and  the  more  we  gave 
the  more  would  be  wanted.  During  Sir  John  Malcolm’s  embassy  to 
Persia,  we  spent  large  sums  in  that  country,  all  to  no  purpose.  During 
the  occupation  of  Afghanistan  we  were  still  more  lavish  of  our  treasure, 
and  with  similar  results. 

I would  simply  recommend  that  we  give  the  Ameer  to  understand, 
indirectly,  that  we  are  willing  to  forget  the  past  and  enter  into  friendly 
relations,  should  he  desire  it.  In  the  event  of  his  making  such  proposals, 
a native  gentleman,  such  as  Foujdar  Khan,  might  go  to  Jellalabad  or  Ali 
Musjid  to  meet  and  conduct  his  son  to  Peshawur,  with  whom  the  treaty 
might  be  concluded  by  your  Lordship  in  person,  if  the  time  suited,  or 
by  such  parties  as  you  might  name. 

To  Edwardes  he  wrote  to  much  the  same  effect. 

I do  not  think  it  will  ever  do  for  us  to  assume  the  initiative  with  the 
Ameer.  We  could  not  do  so  without  loss  both  of  prestige  and  dignity. 
It  might  also  inflate  the  Dost’s  mind,  and  induce  him  to  make  unreason- 
able demands.  I think  also  that  we  should  not  give  him  money  ; the 
faithful  would  give  out  that  we  paid  ‘ khiraj ’ (tax)  to  the  Ameer,  and 
the  demands  would  be  increasing.  We  tried  that  dodge  in  Persia  when 
Sir  John  Malcolm  went  there,  and  again  at  Herat  ; and  the  end  in  both 
cases  was  that  they  took  our  money,  and  then  laughed  at  us.  Depend 
on  it,  if  real  danger  arise  in  Kabul,  the  Dost  will  come  forward,  es- 
pecially if  he  sees  that  our  aspect  is  friendly.  The  Dost,  I anticipate, 
cannot  live  long,  and  this  will  be  an  additional  reason  for  caution.  His 
sons  will,  assuredly,  not  be  able  to  maintain  themselves. 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  IIIS  SUBORDINATES. 


409 


Lord  Dalhousie’s  reply  of  April  1 1 is  also  important,  and  1 
subjoin  an  extract  from  it. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — I have  received  your  several  letters.  It  is  very 
true  that  a treaty  with  Kabul  would  not  be  binding  any  longer  than  the 
Ameer  chose  to  observe  it.  It  is  very  true  that  the  Afghans  arc  natur- 
ally enemies  to  Russia  and  Persia  ; it  is  very  true  that  we  spent  a great 
deal  of  money  at  Herat  to  little  profit ; it  is  very  true  that  even  if  the 
Russians  were  in  Afghanistan  we  are  able  to  keep  them  out  of  India, — 
all  this  is  very  true  ; nevertheless,  my  good  friend,  you  may  take  my 
word  for  it  that  it  is  wise  for  us  to  have  regard  to  public  opinion  beyond 
I the  Five  Rivers,  and  that  — regard  being  had  to  public  opinion  in 
other  parts  of  the  world — it  is  wise  for  us  to  make  some  exertion,  and 
even  some  sacrifice,  to  obtain  a general  treaty  with  the  Ameer,  in  the 
present  aspect  of  the  world’s  affairs.  Wherefore  I do  not  quite  go  with 
you  when  you  lay  down  that,  in  no  circumstances,  should  we  make  any 
move  until  a direct  overture  shall  have  been  received  from  the  Dost. 
However,  it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  that  question  now,  because  the 
proposal  of  Nazir  Khairullah,  which  Edwardes  has  demi-officially  re- 
ported, raises  every  apparent  probability  that  some  letters  will  be  re- 
ceived from  the  Dost.  . . . The  Maharaja  (Duleep  Sing)  is  here, 

and  sails  on  the  19th.  He  has  grown  a good  deal,  speaks  English  well, 
has  a good  manner,  and  altogether  will,  I think,  do  us  credit  in  Eng- 
land, if  they  do  not  spoil  him  there. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Dalhousie. 

‘ Having  said  my  say,’  John  Lawrence  replied  to  this  letter, 
* on  the  proposed  negotiations  with  Kabul,  I am  prepared,  as  in 
duty  bound,  to  carry  out  your  views  with  all  my  heart.’  But 
Dost  Mohammed  did  not,  at  once,  respond  to  the  advances 
made  to  him.  Like  a true  Oriental,  he  considered  haste  unbe- 
coming or  impolitic,  and  John  Lawrence  was  able  to  convince 
his  chief  as  well  as  his  lieutenant  at  Peshawur,  who  were  both 
anxious  for  the  alliance,  that  over-eagerness  on  their  part  might 
defeat  the  object  which  they  had  in  view.  His  letters  at  this 
period,  especially  those  to  Courtenay,  are  rich  in  descriptions 
of  the  Afghan  character. 

Murri : May  6,  1854. 

What  you  say  about  the  treaty  with  the  Dost  is  undeniable.  It  will 
just  be  a concession  to  parliamentary  opinion.  I only  hope  that  we 
shall  not  make  any  real  sacrifice  to  secure  it.  It  would  be  a mistake  to 
do  so.  It  is  mere  folly  of  the  Calcutta  people  to  suppose  that  it  would 
make  the  difference  of  a single  man  at  Peshawur.  It  could,  it  should, 
make  no  difference.  I laugh  at  all  the  Afghans  and  their  machinations. 


4io 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


As  Haji  Baba  would  say,  ‘ I spit  on  their  fathers’  beards.’  But  I should 
consider  it  even  more  necessary  to  be  on  the  alert  against  them  after 
than  before  a treaty.  When  an  Afghan  intends  and  endeavors  to  deceive 
his  enemy,  he  begins  with  promises  and  oaths ; he  sends  him  the  family 
Koran,  and  swears  to  the  truth  of  his  overtures.  A treaty  with  the 
Ameer,  so  far  as  it  would  give  assurance  of  our  friendship,  and  so  long 
as  it  was  for  his  interest  to  maintain  it,  would  have  a tendency  to  keep 
the  border  quiet,  but  no  more.  All  the  fanatical  villains  in  Kabul  and 
the  intervening  lands  would  not  abate  one  jot  of  their  intrigues.  If  you 
gave  the  Ameer  ten  lacs  of  rupees  per  annum  from  this  day  forward,  and 
he  saw  that  he  could  gain  more  by  joining  against  us,  he  would  do  so 
instantly.  His  hesitation  and  doubts  would  solely  be  as  to  the  policy 
which  it  behoves  him  to  pursue. 

The  Afghan  is  by  nature  independent  and  fickle.  The  country  is  poor 
and  strong.  An  enemy  remaining  there  will  eat  up  its  resources  and  in- 
cite the  people  against  him.  . . . My  own  opinion  is,  that  no  such 

invasion  as  I have  supposed  will  occur  in  the  present  age.  But  should 
it  take  place,  our  money  will  be  better  employed  in  strengthening  our 
position  than  in  helping  such  a race  as  the  Afghans  to  fight  our  battles. 

On  June  3 he  writes  : — 

I dare  say  I am  quite  wrong  in  my  views  about  a treaty  with  the 
Ameer.  With  the  Governor-General,  you  [Courtenay],  and  Edwardes 
all  of  a different  opinion,  it  would  be  very  bumptious  of  me  to  stand  out. 
But  I cannot  help  thinking  that  if  ever  the  Russians  get  to  Herat  we 
shall  have  to  fight  our  battles  with  our  own  right  hands.  I do  not  see 
clearly  why  the  Afghans  should  side  with  us  from  motives  of  interest. 
Give  what  support  we  like  in  money  they  could  not  defend  their  country 
so  as  to  prevent  the  Russians  overrunning  and  occupying  it ; though 
after  this  was  effected  they  might  give  immense  annoyance.  Kabul  is 
much  more  assailable  from  the  Herat  side  than  from  this.  But  we  could 
go  there  to-morrow,  with  10,000  men  and  a good  commander,  and  hold 
it  also.  Not  that  I advocate  such  a measure,  which  would  be  most  un- 
wise. But,  if  we  liked  to  spend  a couple  of  millions  annually  on  such  an 
insane  act,  we  could  hold  it. 

Late  in  the  autumn  of  1854  the  long-expected  letter  of  the 
Ameer  arrived — ‘a  very  humble  and  civil  one,’  as  Lord  Dal- 
housie  calls  it.  In  a subsequent  letter,  received  in  January, 
he  proposed  to  send  one  of  his  sons  to  Jumrood  to  negotiate 
the  treaty,  and  particularly  begged  that  John  Lawrence,  the 
Englishman  of  whom  he  had  heard  so  much,  might  come  to 
meet  him  in  person  and  act  as  the  English  representative. 
John  Lawrence  had  been  anxious  to  leave  the  whole  credit 
which  was  likely  to  result  from  the  conclusion  of  a treaty  of 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


411 

which  he  did  not  wholly  approve,  to  his  friend  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Peshawur,  who  had  started  the  idea  and  approved  of  it 
thoroughly.  But  the  request  of  the  Dost  left  him,  as  Lord  Dal- 
housie  pointed  out,  no  choice  in  the  matter.  He  had  to  turn 
diplomatist  for  the  nonce,  and  was  able,  by  his  skilful  manage- 
ment of  the  negotiations  and  the  successful  conclusion  of  the 
treaty,  to  prove  that  diplomacy  is  not  necessarily  trickery,  and 
that  the  diplomatist  who  uses  words  not  to  conceal  his  thoughts, 
but  to  express  them  in  the  most  unmistakable  manner,  is  quite 
as  likely  to  gain  his  point— especially  in  dealing  with  Orientals, 
who  can  always  beat  a European  at  the  game  of  trickery — as 
the  veriest  Talleyrand  or  Metternich. 

John  Lawrence  and  his  wife,  after  spending  Christmas  at 
Lahore,  started  for  Peshawur  and,  accompanied  by  Edwardes, 
by  the  two  Chamberlains,  and  by  an  ample  retinue,  moved  out 
from  thence  on  March  18,  to  Juinrood,  the  advanced  outpost 
of  our  dominions,  in  order  that  they  might  receive  the  heir- 
apparent  to  the  Ameer  of  Afghanistan  with  becoming  dignity. 
On  the  20th  he  was  received  in  full  Durbar  in  the  cantonments 
at  Peshawur  ; and  on  the  morning  of  the  23d  business  began. 

In  the  absence  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  had  been  taken  seri- 
ously ill  at  Galle  and  was  obliged  now  to  take  refuge  for  some 
months  at  Ootacamunde  in  the  Neilgherries,  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner wrote  full  accounts  of  his  proceedings  to  J.  A.  Dorin, 
the  President  in  Council  at  Calcutta  ; and  from  these  and  other 
sources  I gather  a few  personal  touches  and  incidents  of  the 
negotiations  which  are  well  worth  preserving. 

Gholam  Hyder  Khan,  the  son  and  representative  of  the 
great  Ameer  whom  we  had  treated  so  ill,  was  a remarkable 
personage  in  more  ways  than  one.  He  possessed  considerable 
intelligence,  and  ‘for  an  Afghan  chief  was  very  well  informed.’ 
He  thought  and  spoke  for  himself,  and  was  able  to  keep  his 
followers  under  excellent  control.  His  manners  were  frank 
and  amiable.  He  had  been  much  in  India,  and  having  been 
detained  there  as  a prisoner  during  the  Afghan  war,  had  man- 
aged to  make  friends  with  several  British  officers,  and  he  now 
prided  himself  on  recalling  the  places  or  the  things  which  he 
had  seen  during  his  travels.  He  recognised  the  Chamberlains, 
and  treated  them  as  old  friends.  He  wore  English  shoes,  rode 
on  an  English  saddle,  and  was  particularly  pleased  with  an 
English  sword  and  revolver  which  John  Lawrence  gave  him. 
He  walked  through  Major  Edwardes’  house  and  examined  the 


412 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


pictures  and  furniture,  pointing  out  such  articles  as  he  ap- 
proved and  explaining  their  merits  to  his  Sirdars.  He  insisted 
on  giving  John  Lawrence,  in  return  for  the  sword  and  revolver, 
a favourite  horse — he  had  probably  discovered  the  weakness  of 
his  host  for  that  animal — and  when  John  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  send  it  back,  he  replied  that  in  that  case  he  would  shoot  it. 
His  chief  personal  characteristic  was  his  extreme  obesity,  which 
made  it  difficult  for  him  to  ride  or  to  bear  any  physical  fatigue. 
‘ He  has  weak  eyes,’  says  John  Lawrence,  ‘ and  wears  goggles  ; 
he  cannot  sleep  at  night,  and  is  bled  regularly  every  two 
months.  He  has  to  drink  water  frequently  during  our  nego- 
tiations. He  is  only  thirty-seven  years  of  age,  but  the  civil 
surgeon  of  the  station,  whom  he  called  in  to  prescribe  for  him, 
says  that  his  life  is  not  worth  six  months’  purchase,  that  he  may 
die  any  day  from  apoplexy,  and  that,  in  any  case,  he  cannot 
live  long.’  Yet  he  pressed  for  the  insertion  of  his  name  in  the 
treaty,  as  heir-apparent  to  his  father,  with  as  much  earnest- 
ness as  if  he  were  counting  upon  a long  life,  or  was  foolish 
enough  to  hope  that  his  recognition  by  the  English  would 
avail  aught  in  the  struggle  for  power  and  life  which  was  sure 
to  follow  his  father’s  death.  Such  were  some  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  man  with  whom  the  Chief  Commissioner  was  to 
have  so  much  intercourse  during  tbe  next  ten  days. 

It  was  arranged,  on  John  Lawrence’s  proposition,  that  they 
should  meet  without  vakils,  personages  ‘who  were  only  likely 
to  make  or  increase  difficulties;’  that  the  Chief  Commissioner 
was  to  be  accompanied  by  Edwardes  only,  and  the  heir-apparent 
by  three  or  four  of  his  most  trusted  Sirdars  ; and  that  the 
conferences  should  take  place  alternately  in  the  Afghan  camp 
and  in  the  house  of  the  Commissioner  of  Peshawur.  I take 
from  John  Lawrence’s  letters  some  of  the  more  interesting 
passages  in  the  negotiations. 

The  Chief  Commissioner  began  the  conversation  by  saying 
that  the  Governor-General  desired  nothing  but  a treaty  of 
mutual  amity,  but  that,  if  the  Dost  desired  more,  his  son  had 
better  state  what  his  wishes  were. 

‘ We  are  brave  and  warlike,  but  we  are  very  poor,’  replied 
the  heir-apparent  ; ‘ we  shall  offend  the  Russians  and  Persians 
by  making  a treaty  with  you,  and  we  hope  therefore  that  you 
will  grant  us  something  by  way  of  parwarish  (favour).  With 
money  we  are  a match  for  anybody  ; without  it  we  can  do 
little.  Herat  is  one  with  us,  but  it  is  on  the  frontier  of  Persia, 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


413 


and  is  the  highway  of  Russia.  If  the  Persians  and  Russians 
attack  it,  as  they  probably  will,  will  you  stand  unconcernedly 
aloof  and  say  it’s  no  business  of  yours  ?’ 

The  Chief  Commissioner  replied  that  he  did  not  anticipate 
any  danger  of  the  kind.  We  had  made  a treaty  with  Persia, 
which  warned  her  not  to  attack  the  countries  lying  between 
herself  and  India  ; and  as  for  the  Russians,  they  had  plenty 
to  do  in  Europe,  nor  was  it  likely  that  we,  who  were  fighting 
them  there,  would  wish  to  see  them  attack  the  Afghans. 

‘Persia,’  retorted  Hyder  Khan,  ‘adjoins  Russia;  she  does 
not  love  Russia,  but  fears  her,  and  must  do  her  bidding.  The 
Afghans,  if  united,  as,  by  the  blessing  of  God  they  now  are, 
have  nothing  to  fear  from  Persia,  unless  Russia  joins  her.  If 
Russia  has  really  no  designs  on  India,  why  does  she  attack 
Khokand  ? why  has  she  seized  Ak  Musjid  and  cantonned  her 
troops  there  ? ’ 

‘We  can  always  stop  Persia,’  replied  the  Chief  Commissioner, 
‘ by  a counter-demonstration  on  her  coast ; and  we  do  not  wish 
to  offend  her  needlessly  by  saying  anything  about  Herat  in  the 
treaty.’ 

‘ Persia,’ rejoined  Hyder  Khan,  ‘ is  not  quite  so  considerate 
for  your  feelings  as  you  appear  to  be  of  hers.  I can  show  you 
a copy  of  a treaty  she  has  proposed  to  make  with  us  against 
you,  if  you  should  interfere  in  Afghanistan.’ 

‘ That,’ said  the  Chief  Commissioner,  ‘is  mere  talk  on  the 
part  of  Persia.’ 

‘Yes,’  said  Hyder  Khan,  ‘talk  and  insolence.  But  after  Per- 
sia and  Afghanistan  have  for  centuries  plundered  Hindustan, 
it  is  no  wonder  if  Persia  is  alarmed  at  seeing  such  a revulsion 
of  fortune  as  Hindustan  flowing  back,  year  by  year,  towards 
Khorassan.  But  we  should  like  to  know  what  you  mean  by 
Afghanistan — its  present  or  its  former  limits  ? ’ 

This  was,  of  course,  a feeler  towards  Peshawur,  the  place  which 
John  Lawrence  himself,  then  and  ever  afterwards,  thought  a 
source  of  weakness  to  us.  But  his  answer  was  decided.  ‘ The 
present  boundaries  of  Afghanistan  are,  of  course,  those  which 
will  be  maintained.  We  have  no  desire  to  interfere  in  Afghan- 
istan, nor  will  we  allow  you  to  interfere  with  us.  Our  only  object 
in  making  a treaty  is  one  of  mutual  assurance,  so  that  the  border 
tracts  may  be  at  peace,  and  agriculture  and  commerce  flourish. 
Your  ruler  will  get  a larger  revenue  and  will  be  better  able  to 
resist  his  enemies  when  he  is  assured  on  the  side  of  Peshawur. 


414 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


‘ Yes,’  said  Hyder  Khan,  ‘ we  shall  have  nothing  to  fear  from 
our  other  enemies  if  they  are  not  helped  by  Russia.  As  for 
Bokhara,  vve  have  old  scores  to  pay  off  on  her,  as  you  have. 
Has  not  the  Shah  of  Bokhara  slain  Stoddart  Sahib  and  Conolly 
Sahib  ? Has  he  not  also  killed  some  of  my  own  relations  ? We 
will  go  and  punish  him.  An  Afghan  compared  to  a Turcoman 
is  like  a wolf  compared  to  a sheep.’ 

The  Chief  Commissioner  hereupon  assured  his  friend  that  we 
had  no  designs  upon  Afghanistan,  but  only  desired  her  to  be 
strong  and  independent.  The  interests  of  the  two  States  were 
in  fact  identical ; they  were  in  one  boat. 

‘Well,  then,’ replied  Hyder  Khan,  with  vivacity,  ‘if  we  are 
in  one  boat  we  must  sink  or  swim  together.  Promise  to  assist 
us,  or  your  successor  may  not  know  what  you  have  said,  and 
will  stand  aloof  in  the  time  of  danger.’  So  ended  the  first  in- 
terview. 

On  the  following  day  the  question  of  Herat  again  came 
up,  and  John  Lawrence  again  dwelt  on  our  engagement  with 
Persia. 

‘ Herat,’  Hyder  Khan  replied,  ‘ is  the  right  arm  of  Afghan- 
istan. Look  at  his  hand,’ — pointing  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Peshawur’s  wounded  hand — ‘did  it  not  grieve  him  to  lose  its 
use  ? Thus  it  would  pain  us  to  lose  Herat.  If  it  be  attacked  we 
must  go  to  its  aid.  If  the  treaty  is  to  benefit  us,  Herat  should 
be  included.’ 

John  Lawrence  was  not  empowered,  nor  would  he  have  wished, 
to  yield  the  point,  because  of  the  complications  it  would  cer- 
tainly involve  ; but  he  offered  to  give  in  writing  some  extracts 
from  Edmondstone’s  letter  of  instructions,  which  would  show 
what  our  wishes  were  on  the  matter  ; and  Hyder  Khan  then 
yielded  the  point  with  a good  grace. 

The  next  question  raised  must  have  been  interesting  to  the 
Chief  Commissioner  from  a family  as  well  as  from  a public 
point  of  view,  for  Mohammed  Khan,  to  whom  the  Ameer  re- 
quested us  to  restore  his  former  fiefs,  was  the  very  man  who  had 
betrayed  George  Lawrence  into  the  hands  of  the  Sikhs,  under 
circumstances  which  even  an  Afghan  would  be  likely  to  con- 
demn. 

‘ Mohammed  Khan,’  said  the  Chief  Commissioner,  ‘ had  been 
degraded  by  the  Sikhs  themselves,  and  when  we  conquered  the 
Punjab  was  living  more  as  a prisoner  than  a free  man  at  La- 
hore. My  brother,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  had  treated  him  with 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


415 


the  greatest  honour  and  consideration,  and  had  allowed  him  to 
return  to  his  fiefs  in  Peshawur  and  Kohat.  There  he  plotted 
against  my  eldest  brother,  Colonel  George  Lawrence  ; and  when 
that  officer  and  his  family,  at  the  urgent  entreaty  of  Moham- 
med Khan  himself,  sought  an  asylum  at  Kohat,  he  basely  gave 
them  up  to  the  insurgents.’ 

At  this  point  Ilyder  Khan  seized  the  Chief  Commissioner’s 
two  hands  and  exclaimed,  ‘ For  God’s  sake  say  no  more  ! spare 
me  the  repetition  of  my  relative’s  treachery,  which  blackened 
the  name  of  our  whole  race.  Who  does  not  know  that  the 
Khazwanis  are  called  Khugwanis  to  this  day  because  they  gave 
protection  to  a khuk  (wild  pig)  which  their  own  sovereign 
hunted  into  their  tents  ? ’ Another  of  the  Sirdars  cried  out, 
‘ There  is  not  an  Afghan  who  does  not  feel  the  disgrace  which 
Sultan  Mohammed  Khan  has  cast  on  his  nation.  Hospitality 
is  an  Afghan  virtue.’ 

Hyder  Khan  then  gave  up  the  point,  remarking  that  he  could 
say  nothing  in  favour  of  his  uncle,  and  had  only  broached  the 
question  at  all  under  the  pressure  of  Mohammed  Khan’s  en- 
treaties to  the  Ameer.  The  whole  party  seemed  much  relieved 
when  the  discussion  passed  on  to  the  next  clause. 

Once  more  Hyder  Khan  tried  to  get  a promise  of  assistance, 
both  in  men  and  money,  in  case  the  Afghans  should  be  attacked 
or  threatened  by  Russia.  But  the  Chief  Commissioner  stood 
firm,  pointing  out  the  likelihood  of  collision  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  Afghans  if  the  former  ever  entered  the  country.  And 
the  meeting  broke  up  with  the  understanding  that  the  Chief 
Commissioner  should,  when  they  next  met,  produce  the  draft 
of  a treaty  in  accordance  with  the  course  of  the  discussions. 
The  draft,  when  produced,  contained  three  short  articles,  by 
one  of  which  the  Ameer  was  to  bind  himself  to  ‘ be  the  friend 
of  the  friends  and  the  enemy  of  the  enemies  of  the  East  India 
Company,’  while  the  English  were  not  to  pledge  themselves  to 
anything  of  the  kind.  Hyder  Khan  raised  the  obvious  objec- 
tion that  the  treaty  was  one-sided,  and  that  the  engagement 
ought  to  be  reciprocal.  But  the  Chief  Commissioner  replied 
that  there  was  a vast  difference  between  the  two  Governments  ; 
that  we  were  content  with  our  condition  and  had  no  desire  to 
advance,  while  the  Ameer  admitted  that  he  had  ambitious 
views  ; that  we  had  no  enemies  of  whom  we  were  in  dread, 
while  the  Ameer  was  likely  to  be  in  continual  collision  with 
his  ; and  that  if  we  bound  ourselves  as  he  did,  it  would  necessi- 


4i  6 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


tate  a constant  interference  in  Afghan  affairs  which  would  be 
as  distasteful  to  the  Afghans  as  to  us.  Seeing  that  the  Chief 
Commissioner  meant  what  he  said,  Hyder  Khan  intimated  that 
he  would  comply  with  our  wishes,  though  he  did  so  with  evi- 
dent reluctance.  He  then  retired  with  his  counsellors — like  a 
jury  about  to  consider  their  verdict — into  an  adjoining  room, 
and  returned  within  an  hour,  with  one  or  two  slight  but  char- 
acteristic amendments  to  the  draft  treaty.  The  Ameer  was  to 
be  styled,  not  the  Ameer  of  Kabul,  but  the  Wali  of  Kabul  and 
those  countries  of  Afghanistan  which  were  in  his  possession  ; 
‘for  Kabul,’  remarked  the  Sirdar,  ‘was  only  a city,  while  Af- 
ghanistan was  a large  country,  and  Wali  was  the  proper  name 
for  a supreme  ruler,  while  an  Ameer  might  be  only  one  out  of 
many.’  This  point  was  of  course  agreed  to,  as  was  the  Sirdar’s 
request  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  sign  the  treaty  on  his  own 
account.  The  business  was  now  over,  and  the  Sirdar  took  his 
leave — not,  however,  before  the  arrival  of  the  Overland  Mail, 
which  enabled  the  Chief  Commissioner  to  congratulate  his 
Highness  on  the  victory  gained  by  Omar  Pasha  over  the  Rus- 
sians at  Eupatoria,  an  achievement  which  was  welcomed  as  a 
happy  omen  for  the  new  treaty  ! 

On  the  morning  of  the  28th,  at  the  special  request  of  Gholam 
Hyder,  a review  of  the  English  troops  was  held  in  his  honour, 
and  at  seven  a.m.  on  the  30th  the  treaty  was  signed,  sealed,  and 
delivered  in  full  Durbar.  It  ran  as  follows  : — 

Article  I. 

Between  the  Honourable  East  India  Company  and  His  Highness  the 
Ameer  Dost  Mohammed  Khan,  Wali  of  Kabul  and  of  those  countries  of 
Afghanistan  now  in  his  possession,  and  the  heirs  of  the  said  Ameer, 
there  shall  be  perpetual  peace  and  friendship. 

Article  II. 

The  Honourable  East  India  Company  engages  to  respect  those  coun- 
tries of  Afghanistan  now  in  His  Highness’s  possession,  and  never  to  in- 
terfere therein. 

Article  III. 

His  Highness  Ameer  Dost  Mohammed  Khan,  Wali  of  Kabul  and  of 
those  countries  of  Afghanistan  now  in  his  possession,  engages  on  his  own 
part,  and  on  the  part  of  his  heirs,  to  respect  the  territories  of  the  Hon- 
ourable East  India  Company,  and  never  to  interfere  therein  ; and  to  be 
friend  of  the  friends  and  enemy  of  the  enemies  of  the  Honourable  East 
India  Company. 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


417 


Done  at  Peshawur,  this  thirtieth  day  of  March,  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fifty-five  ; corresponding  with  the  eleventh  day  of  Rujjub, 
one  thousand  two  hundred  and  seventy-one,  Hegira. 

John  Lawrence, 

Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab. 

Gholam  Hyder, 

Heir-Apparent, 

As  the  Representative  of  the  Ameer  Dost  Mohammed  Khan, 
and  in  person  on  his  own  account  as  the  Heir-Apparent. 

Ratified  by  the  most  noble  the  Governor-General  at  Ootacamunde,  this 
first  day  of  May,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty-five. 

DALHOUSIE. 

G.  F.  Edmondstone, 

Secretary  to  the  Government  of  India  with  the  Governor-General. 

On  the  last  of  March  Gholam  Hyder  took  his  leave  for  Af- 
ghanistan. 

I leave  Peshawur  this  evening  (wrote  the  Chief  Commissioner  to  Lord 
Dalhousie  on  April  2),  having  waited  here  till  the  Sirdar  was  safely  out 
of  British  territory.  Edwardes  saw  him  last  night  comfortably  pitched  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Khyber.  Lieutenant  Turner  escorted  him  this  morning 
to  its  very  edge.  The  Sirdar  expressed  himself  perfectly  satisfied  with  his 
reception  and  treatment  since  his  arrival,  and  good  reason  there  was  for 
him  to  be  so.  For  had  he  been  the  son  of  our  Queen  we  could  not  have 
treated  him  more  handsomely.  He,  literally,  not  only  lived  at  our  ex- 
pense, but  took  away  a round  sum  in  money.  We  gave  him  a very  good 
review,  in  which  the  troops  showed  well,  and,  in  particular,  the  Artillery 
and  European  Infantry.  He  was  especially  struck  with  the  latter.  * Ha  ! 
ha  ! ’ says  he,  turning  to  his  followers  ; * see  how  they  march  ! these  are 
the  jan-i-jung ' (soul  of  the  battle).  And  certainly  H.  M.’s  24th  did  look 
splendid.  People  say  that  the  Sirdar  and  his  confidential  men  are  highly 
pleased  with  the  treaty,  and  that  it  is  worth  lacs  of  rupees  to  the  Ameer, 
by  securing  him  from  his  most  dangerous  foes,  and  thus  enabling  him  to 
set  his  house  in  order  and  turn  his  attention  to  other  quarters.  I suspect 
it  wall  not  be  long  before  he  reduces  the  allowances  of  the  Khyberees 
and  others.  The  former  gentry  get  26,000  rupees  per  annum  from  him  ! 

. . . What  the  Afghans  really  set  their  heart  on  is  the  possession  of 

Peshawur.  They  often  spoke  with  deep  regret  of  its  loss,  and  their  eyes 
quite  lighted  up  when  expatiating  on  its  beauties.  They  said  they  hoped 
some  day  to  deserve  it  by  their  good  services  to  us.  The  Sirdar  saw  it 
was  useless  asking  for  it,  so,  like  a wise  man,  said  nothing.  . . . On 

one  occasion  he  asked  me  if  it  was  true  that  we  only  took  eight  lacs  from 
the  valley,  for  that  the  Sikhs  got  as  much  as  fourteen.  This,  I told  him, 
was  correct  ; but  that  the  Sikh  system  was  very  oppressive,  and  that  we 
took  as  much  as  was  fair  and  reasonable. 

Vol.  I. — 27 


4i8 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


John  Lawrence  himself  was  not  disposed  to  think  more  highly 
of  the  treaty  now  that  it  was  concluded  than  he  had  done  at  first, 
nor  did  he  lay  much  store  by  the  part  he  had  played  in  it.  ‘ The 
treaty  has  been  signed,’  he  wrote  off  to  Nicholson  as  soon  as  it 
was  over,  ‘ and  there  is  no  harm  in  it.  The  Barukzais  promise 
much  and  we  little  ; still  they  will  get  more  out  of  us  than  we  shall 
out  of  them,  in  the  usual  course  of  things.’  And  when,  a little 
later  in  the  year,  Lord  Dalhousie  wrote  to  say  that  he  intended 
to  recommend  him  for  some  special  honour  in  recognition  of  his 
services,  he  wrote  back  to  Courtenay  in  reference  to  the  subject  : 
‘Nothing  can  be  handsomer  than  the  terms  in  which  the  Gov- 
ernor-General has  offered  to  recommend  me  for  honours.  The 
treaty  was  certainly  a lucky  hit,  and  no  doubt  will  be  much 
thought  of  at  home  ; but  I like  to  think  that  if  I deserve  any- 
thing it  is  for  my  labours  as  a civil  administrator.’  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that,  in  all  his  communications  with  the  Gov- 
ernor-General, John  Lawrence  dwelt  with  special  emphasis  on 
Edwardes’  services  in  connection  with  the  treaty.  ‘ Edwardes 
has  given  me  the  most  cordial  and  able  assistance  throughout 
the  negotiations  ; indeed,  without  his  aid  I should  have  had  a 
difficult  part  to  perform.’ 

The  Chief  Commissioner  was  now  free  to  return  to  the  ordi- 
nary work  of  his  administration  ; and — what  must  have  been 
specially  pleasant  amidst  the  many  difficulties  and  vexations  of 
his  work — several  of  the  old  Punjabi  school,  who  had  been  origin- 
ally introduced  into  the  country  by  his  brother  Henry-,  and  were 
his  devoted  followers,  on  returning  to  India  from  furlough, 
showed  no  backwardness  to  enrol  themselves  under  his  succes- 
sor. Such  was  Edward  Lake,  who  returned  to  the  Trans-Sutlej 
territory,  where  John  Lawrence  had  first  known  him  ; such  was 
Reynell  Taylor,  the  hero  of  Lukki,  who,  as  Deputy--Commis- 
sioner  of  Kangra,  was  to  do  excellent  sendee  during  the  Mutiny, 
and  was  afterwards  to  return  to  the  Marches,  which  he  had,  in 
a manner,  already  made  his  own,  and  of  which  he  has  proved  a 
worthy  warden  almost  ever  since  ; such  was  Harry-  Lumsden, 
‘ Barbarossa,’  as  John  Lawrence  calls  him,  who  returned  in  the 
following  year  to  the  command  of  the  splendid  regiment  of 
Guides  which  he  had  himself  originally  raised  ; such,  too,  was 
Neville  Chamberlain,  the  chivalrous  and  high-souled  soldier 
who  had  succeeded  Hodgson  as  Brigadier  of  the  frontier  force. 
Again  and  again  John  Lawrence’s  delight  and  exultation  at  this 
last  auspicious  change  breaks  out  even  in  the  midst  of  the  driest 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


419 


details  of  his  business  letters,  in  words  which  have  been  more 
than  justified  by  the  long  and  brilliant  career  in  India  which 
has  only  just  terminated.  ‘There  is  no  man,’  says  John  Law- 
rence to  Neville  Chamberlain  himself,  ‘ in  the  Bengal  army 
whom  I would  so  gladly  see  at  the  head  of  the  Punjab  force  as 
yourself,  and  few  for  whom  I have  a greater  regard  and  respect.’ 
‘ I know  hardly  any  man,’  he  says  to  a mutual  friend,  ‘perhaps 
no  one  man,  who  commands  so  generally  the  esteem  of  his 
brother  soldiers.’ 

Other  able  men,  too,  who  could  not  exactly  be  said  to  be- 
long to  the  school  of  either  Lawrence,  such  as  George  Camp- 
bell, who  has  since  then  set  his  mark  on  various  parts  of  India, 
and  whose  impressions  of  the  ‘ extraordinary  energy  and  abil- 
ity ’ of  his  new  chief  I shall  quote  hereafter,  now  re-entered 
the  Punjab.  The  regular  troops  at  Peshawur,  over  whom  John 
Lawrence  had  no  direct  control,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  man 
whom  he  had  long  worked  to  get  there — Brigadier  Sydney 
Cotton — a soldier  to  the  backbone,  as  the  outbreak  of  the 
Mutiny  was  to  prove,  though  he  had  up  to  that  time  never 
heard  a shot  fired.  ‘By  common  consent,’  John  Lawrence 
had  said,  writing  to  the  Governor-General,  ‘ Cotton  is  one  of 
the  best  soldiers  we  have  had  for  a long  time,  and  Peshawur 
is  assuredly  the  place  where  we  should  have  the  best  soldier 
going.  There  is  not  a doubt  that  he  is  the  right  man  for  the 
place.’  It  is  now,  too,  that  I find  in  his  letters  the  first  mention 
of  an  excellent  soldier,  whom  he  was  shortly  to  employ  on  a 
perilous  errand — Peter  Lumsden,  a younger  brother  of  Harry, 

‘ as  fine  a young  fellow,’  says  the  writer,  ‘as  the  Indian  Army 
ever  produced.’ 

John  Lawrence  had  thus  succeeded,  like  his  brother,  in 
getting  together  a body  of  extraordinarily  able  men.  But  he 
soon  found  that  it  was  much  easier  to  get  them  than  to  keep 
them.  Men  with  decided  characters  and  strong  wills,  if — to 
use  John  Lawrence’s  favorite  expression — they  are  to  ‘ pull 
together  in  the  team  ’ at  all,  require  a ruler  who  not  only  has 
superior  authority,  a still  stronger  will,  and  still  greater  ability 
than  any  of  them,  but  one  who  has  also  an  almost  inexhaust- 
ible supply  of  patience  and  forbearance,  of  tact  and  of  discrim- 
ination of  character.  Now  it  is  in  these  last  qualities  that, 
contrary  to  the  usual  opinion  and  in  apparent  contradiction 
also  to  the  bluntness  and  directness  of  his  manner,  John 
Lawrence’s  letters  show  that  he  was  pre-eminent.  A lazy,  or 


420 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


incapable,  or  shuffling,  or  unconscientious  subordinate  he 
would  not  stand.  He  elbowed  him  out  of  his  way  to  a Resi- 
dency or  elsewhere  as  soon  as  possible.  But  if  he  recognised 
that  the  man,  whatever  his  weaknesses,  had  ‘stuff,’  or  ‘grit,’  or 
‘ mettle  ’ in  him,  there  was  no  amount  of  trouble  he  would  not 
take  to  help  him,  to  humour  him,  and  to  retain  him  in  the 
team.  ‘No  one  that  I have  ever  known,’  said  Sir  Richard 
Temple  in  conversation  with  me,  ‘ was  equal  to  him  in  this 
respect.  He  recognised  that  human  nature  was  human  nature 
— a compound  of  faults  and  virtues,  merits  and  foibles.  He 
would  say  of  a man  who  had  given  him  no  end  of  trouble, 
“Never  mind,  he  has  got  ‘go,’  he  has  got  zeal  he  knew 
that  a strong  horse  with  a tight  hand  would  do  more  work  and 
better  work,  in  the  long  run,  than  a weak  horse  to  whom  you 
might  give  his  head.  If  he  thought  a man  wanting  in  fibre  of 
character,  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  The  more 
complicated  the  machinery  of  the  watch,  the  less  he  liked  it,  if 
the  main-spring  were  wanting. 

Now,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  year  which  followed 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  Afghanistan  would  have  been 
abundantly  employed  if  John  Lawrence  had  had  nothing  else  to 
do  but  to  keep  his  team  together.  He  managed  to  do  so,  and 
carried  on  also  the  ordinary  work  of  the  administration  with- 
out slackening  for  an  instant.  No  biography  of  John  Lawrence 
would  be  complete,  in  my  judgment,  if  it  did  not  attempt, 
by  full  quotations  from  his  letters,  to  give  some  general  idea 
of  the  difficulties  of  this  kind  which  came  in  his  way,  and  of 
the  methods  by  which  he  breasted  or  overcame  them.  And  if 
it  be  objected  that  this  side  of  his  work  and  character  cannot 
be  brought  out  without  giving  to  petty  misunderstandings 
an  importance  which  did  not  belong  to  them,  and  without 
laying  bare  the  weak  points  of  some  of  his  best  friends,  I 
answer,  that  if  the  misunderstandings  themselves  were  un- 
important, the  spirit  in  which  he  met  them  is  far  from  being  so, 
and  that  his  efforts  to  satisfy  the  malcontents,  or  to  reconcile 
opponents,  so  far  from  reflecting  discredit  on  them,  are  a 
proof  of  what  he  considered  to  be  their  intrinsic  worth.  They 
show  that  in  his  opinion  they  possessed  the  ‘grit,’  the  ‘fibre,’ 
the  ‘backbone,’  in  comparison  with  which  all  smaller  failings 
were  but  as  spots  upon  the  sun.  Sometimes,  then,  it  was  John 
Coke,  the  stiff-necked  but  splendid  soldier,  in  civil  and  military 
charge  of  Kohat,  who,  if  he  could  not  have  his  own  way — 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


421 


could  not,  for  instance,  build  a fort  in  the  middle  of  a hostile 
tribe,  or  impose  tribute  on  hill-men  who  dwelt  beyond  our 
borders — would  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  his  superior,  the 
Commissioner  of  Peshawur,  and,  once  in  every  few  months, 
would  write  to  John  Lawrence,  threatening  to  resign  his  post  ! 
Sometimes  it  was  Robert  Napier  and  the  Engineers,  whose 
expenditure  John  Lawrence  had  long  striven,  with  very  imper- 
fect success,  by  protestations  and  entreaties,  to  keep  within 
bounds,  and  whom  he  was  now  driven  by  the  scarcity  of  money 
in  the  treasury,  and  by  directions  from  the  Supreme  Govern- 
ment, to  bring  to  order  by  more  efficacious  means.  Sometimes 
it  was  the  arrears  of  Donald  Macleod  ; sometimes  the  military 
justice  of  Edwardes  ; sometimes  the  fatal  gravitation,  as  he 
thought  it,  of  all  alike — all  except  his  dear  friend  Donald — to- 
wards the  hills. 

Take,  as  a sample,  the  case  of  Nicholson  and  Chamberlain. 
An  incursion  of  the  Musaod  Wuzeeris  had  taken  place  and  a 
native  chieftain — Zeman  Khan,  the  right  hand  of  Nicholson — 
had  been  killed  to  the  rear  of  the  frontier  posts,  the  guardians 
of  which  had,  somehow  or  other,  failed  to  come  to  the  rescue. 
Nicholson  wrote  to  the  Chief  Commissioner,  reflecting  bitterly 
on  the  force  of  which  Chamberlain  was  the  head,  and  Chamber- 
lain,  naturally  enough,  as  bitterly  resented  the  imputation. 
And  now  began  a battle  royal,  the  attempt  to  allay  which  in- 
volved an  expenditure  on  the  part  of  the  Chief  Commissioner 
of  many  reams  of  paper,  and  of  many  hours  of  precious  time. 
It  was  a triangular  duel,  in  which  the  third  man,  who  was  at- 
tempting to  play  the  part  of  peacemaker,  had  reason  to  feel  that 
the  Beatitude  on  the  peacemakers  did  not  promise  peace  of 
mind  in  this  world  to  the  peacemaker  himself.  Indeed,  he 
often  managed  by  his  assiduous  efforts  only  to  direct  the  wrath 
of  the  principals  in  the  quarrel  upon  himself.  Sometimes  he 
would  try  the  effect  of  a gentle  yet  a plain-spoken  rebuke  to 
each  ; sometimes  of  an  appeal  to  their  public  spirit ; sometimes 
he  would  write  to  Nicholson  on  the  extraordinary  merits  of 
Chamberlain,  which  so  far ’outweighed  his  small  failings,  and 
then  he  would  write  in  the  same  strain  to  Chamberlain  respect- 
ing Nicholson  ; and  once  again,  by  a happy  gtroke  of  Scotch  or 
Irish  humour,  he  would  exorcise  for  the  moment  any  angry 
feelings  from  the  heart  of  his  correspondent,  and,  by  raising  a 
laugh  even  on  so  serious  a subject,  would  reduce  it,  for  a mo- 
ment, to  its  true  proportions.  Happily,  he  was  able  to  vent  his 


422 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


feelings  and  to  pour  out  his  griefs  to  his  intimate  friends,  Rob- 
ert Montgomery,  Donald  Macleod,  and  Herbert  Edwardes,  al- 
though the  latter  had  a sufficiently  serious  quarrel  of  his  own 
raging  at  the  very  same  time  with  Coke.  An  extract  from  one 
of  these  letters,  to  begin  with,  will  give  some  idea  of  the  subject 
of  dispute  between  Nicholson  and  Chamberlain,  and  of  John 
Lawrence’s  attempts  to  reconcile  them. 

As  to  Coke,  poor  old  fellow,  I wish  I could  give  him  a Brigade  and 
make  him  a K.C.B.  ...  As  for  Chamberlain,  I am  grieved  to 
think  that  he  is  vexed.  I saw  that  such  was  the  case,  and  did  my  best 
to  soften  the  matter.  He  wanted  me  to  pitch  into  Nicholson,  which  I 
could  not  well  do.  You  know  old  ‘ Nick,’  what  a stern,  uncompromising 
chap  he  is.  He  was  frightfully  aggravated  at  the  death  of  Zeman  Khan, 
and  spoke  out  plainly — too  plainly — about  the  cavalry  in  the  posts.  They 
were  not  to  blame  in  this  particular  case,  though  the  inference  to  be  de- 
duced from  the  fact  that  the  plundered  folk  passed  them  and  their  posts, 
and  went  ten  miles  farther  on  was  unfavourable  to  them.  But  the  fact  is 
that  the  detachments  in  the  posts  have  done  little  or  no  good  in  the  Der- 
ajat ; they  seldom  come  across  the  plunderers,  and  never  yet,  that  I can 
remember,  cut  them  up.  I did  not  tell  Chamberlain  one-tenth  of  what 
Nicholson  said,  and  much  of  which  seemed  to  me  to  be  true.  I have 
written  to  him,  begging  that  when  he  has  complaints  to  make  he  will  be 
more  considerate  and  moderate  in  his  tone.  The  detachments  at  the 
outposts  do  not  effectually  guard  the  border.  This  is  the  gravamen  of 
Nicholson’s  charge.  If  they  do  so,  surely  Chamberlain  can  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  showing  it.  If  they  do  not,  ought  it  not  to  be  stated  ? Nichol- 
son mentions  four  successive  cases  in  which  the  freebooters  got  clear  off. 

I give  next  two  extracts,  one  from  a letter  to  Chamberlain  in 
defence  of  Nicholson,  the  other  to  Nicholson  irv  defence  of 
Chamberlain,  which  will  illustrate  the  consummate  skill  and 
patience  with  which  John  Lawrence  played  the  part  of  peace- 
maker. 

Murri:  May  25,  1855. 

My  dear  Chamberlain, — Macpherson  sent  me  your  note  of  the  12th, 
explaining  your  views  and  feelings  on  Nicholson’s  remarks  regarding  the 
detachment  of  the  First  Punjab  Cavalry,  as  connected  with  the  late  af- 
fair in  which  Zeman  Khan  was  killed.  I assure  you  your  note  has  given 
me  much  pain.  There  is  no  man  in  the  Bengal  army  whom  I would  so 
gladly  see  at  the  head  of  the  Punjab  force  as  yourself,  and  few  for  whom 
I have  a greater  regard  and  respect.  It  is  my  sincere  desire  to  consult 
your  views  and  feelings  in  all  matters  connected  with  your  command.  I 
fully  thought  that  my  letter  of  the  2nd  May  (demi-official)  would  have 
satisfied  you. 


423 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 

If  I know  myself  at  all,  I believe  I am  one  of  the  last  men  who  would 
reflect  unjustly  or  unreasonably  on  military  men.  I have  passed  all  my 
service  among  them,  and  some  of  my  best  friends  are  of  that  cloth.  I 
have  no  jiesire  to  support  Nicholson  unreasonably,  and  I freely  admit 
that  he  does  not  write  in  as  conciliatory  a tone  as  is  desirable.  But  he 
is  thoroughly  honest  and  straightforward,  and,  I feel  sure,  has  no  sinister 
views.  What  he  desires  is  to  see  the  frontier  well  protected.  This,  of 
course,  cannot  be  effected  unless  the  conduct  of  the  detachment  in 
charge  of  posts  be  criticised  when  it  may  appear  they  have  been  in  any 
way  to  blame.  In  the  particular  case  in  which  Zeman  Khan  was  killed 
they  received  no  warning,  and  therefore  Nicholson’s  censure  was,  so  far, 
unjust.  Still,  the  fact  that  they  were  not  aware  of  the  raid,  and  that  the 
sufferers  did  not  apply  for  assistance  to  them,  gives  some  colour  to  the 
inference  which  he  drew,  that  the  people  had  not  the  proper  confidence 
in  them. 

It  did  not  appear  to  me  that  more  was  required  than  to  send  you  his 
explanation.  But  as  it  appears  that  you  still  think  that  justice  has  not 
been  dealt  out  in  the  case,  suppose  we  have  a court  of  inquiry  to  investi- 
gate the  matter?  If,  then,  it  turn  out  that  Nicholson  has  aspersed  the 
cavalry,  or,  in  short,  said  more  than  the  case  warranted,  he  must  make 
the  amende.  I am  sure  he  is  too  honest  a fellow  not  to  do  so. 

As  regards  yourself,  I know  that  he  looked  forward  to  your  return  to 
the  Punjab  and  assumption  of  the  command  with  pleasure  and  confi- 
dence. Before  it  was  known  that  you  were  to  have  the  Brigadiership — 
that  is,  just  after  you  went  to  the  Cape — he  asked  me  for  my  interest  in 
the  event  of  its  becoming  vacant.  I replied  that,  though  you  had  never 
asked  for  my  advocacy,  I had  voluntarily  told  you  I should  wish  to  see 
you  get  the  command,  and  had  reason  to  believe  that  the  Governor- 
General  intended  giving  it  to  you.  Nicholson  replied,  by  return  of  post, 
that  he  had  not  thought  of  your  name,  and  that  he  would  never  think  of 
being  a candidate  while  you  were  available,  as  he  believed  you  were 
much  mofe  fitted  for  the  post  than  himself.  Now,  I think  that  a man 
who  wrote  and  thought  of  you  in  this  way  would  be  the  last  to  mean  to 
asperse  the  force  under  your  orders. 

As  for  myself,  I am  ready  to  do  whatever  is  just  and  right  I see  by  your 
note  to  Macpherson  that  you  wish  to  come  to  Murri  for  June.  Pray  do 
so.  Let  us  then  talk  over  the  matter,  and  if  I have  not  acted  rightly  to- 
wards you,  I will  admit  it.  If  you  cannot  convince  me  of  this,  I will  let 
Herbert  Edwardes  judge  between  us. 

May  26. 

My  dear  Nicholson, — I enclose  you  a letter  from  Edwardes,  and  an- 
other from  Chamberlain  to  Edwardes  regarding  your  remarks  on  that 
unfortunate  affair  in  which  poor  Zeman  Khan  lost  his  life. 

Chamberlain  is  very  sore,  and  scruples  not  to  say  that  he  will  resign 
unless  the  amende  is  made.  I think  he  is  somewhat  unreasonable. 
Nevertheless  his  resignation  would  be  a public  loss,  and  bring  much  ob- 
loquy. I hope,  therefore,  that  you  will  write  and  express  your  regret  at 


424 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


having  led  me  to  conclude  that  the  detachment  in  the  post  had  received 
notice  of  the  affair.  I have  written  to  you  two  or  three  times  officially  to 
send  me  the  precise  facts  and  dates  of  the  four  raids  which  you  alluded 
to  in  reporting  Zeman  Khan’s  death.  Pray  send  this  without  further 
delay,  and  in  it  express  your  regret  at  the  mistake  which  occurred. 

At  one  time,  John  Lawrence  thought  he  had  succeeded  in  re- 
conciling the  disputants,  and  congratulated  himself  and  them 
most  heartily  upon  it.  But  the  storm  burst  out  again  with  re- 
newed violence,  and  the  vexation  of  this  and  other  worries, 
combined  with  a bad  knee — which  had  incapacitated  him  for 
active  exercise  during  many  months  past,  and  had  driven  him 
to  write  all  his  enormous  correspondence  with  his  leg  in  a hori- 
zontal position — seems,  at  times,  to  have  driven  him  almost  to 
desperation.  Under  such  circumstances  he  poured  out  his  soul 
to  Edwardes  thus  : — 

June  22,  1855. 

I will  see  what  can  be  done  about  the  fort  at  Abbottabad.  But  Napier 
has  got  his  office  and  his  work  into  almost  inextricable  confusion.  What 
to  do  with  him  and  them  I know  not.  Government  has  threatened  to 
stop  all  works  not  of  an  absolutely  urgent  nature,  because  he  will  not 
send  in  his  returns.  To  add  to  my  misery,  Neville  Chamberlain  has 
again  run  rusty.  He  neither  likes  Nicholson’s  letter  nor  my  explanatory 
justification.  I do  declare  to  you  that,  what  with  one  thing  and  the 
other,  I feel  distracted,  and  very  much  wish  I could  cut  the  concern. 
As  for  the  Governor-General,  I hardly  know  what  to  think  of  him.  Poor 
man,  he  seems  very  ill.  He  tells  me  he  ‘ cannot  walk  across  a room  as 
smooth  even  as  a billiard  board.’  To  complete  my  miseries  my  wife  is 
ill  in  bed.  She  had  rather  a serious  attack  yesterday,  but  is  better  to- 
day. I enclose  you  Chamberlain’s  letter. 

Under  somewhat  similar  feelings,  though  about  other  people 
and  other  difficulties,  he  writes  to  Montgomery  on  May  17. 

The  real  defect  is  in  our  officers  themselves.  I can  only  work  with  the 
tools  Government  gives  me.  I distribute  them  to  the  best  of  my  ability, 
but  I cannot  infuse  ability  and  force  of  character  into  them.  As  they  say 
in  your  country  and  mine,  ‘ blood  is  not  to  be  got  out  of  a turnip.’  You 

say  will  do  harm  at  Gogaira.  He  will  do  less  harm  there  than  at 

Dera  Ghazi  Khan.  Will  you  tell  me  where  to  put  him,  and  whom  to 
send  to  Mooltan  ? I feel  perfectly  bewildered  about  the  distribution  of 
officers.  To  care  for  the  interests  and  prejudices  of  men,  and  yet  to 
further  the  public  interest,  is  a riddle  equal  to  that  which  the  Sphinx 
propounded  to  CEdipus.  I wish  you  would  sit  down  and  distribute  the 
officers  available  in  the  way  which  you  think  would  work  well.  I am  nine 
short  of  my  complement,  and  more  are  going  away  daily. 


425 


1S54-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 

But  John  Lawrence’s  humour  was  able  to  throw  some  rays  of 
light  on  the  squabble  even  when  it  was  at  its  darkest.  For  in- 
stance, on  July  2 he  writes  to  Edwardes — 

I return  Nicholson’s  letter.  I have  got  an  official  letter  from  Chamber- 
lain,  putting  twenty  queries  on  each  of  the  four  raids  to  Nicholson ! Now, 
if  anything  will  bring  ‘ Nick  ’ to  his  senses,  it  will  be  these  queries.  He 
will  polish  off  a tribe  in  the  most  difficult  fortress,  or  ride  the  border  like 
‘ belted  Will  ’ of  former  days  ; but  one  query  in  writing  is  often  a stum- 
per for  a month  or  two.  The  ‘ pen-and-ink  work,’  as  he  calls  it,  * does 
not  suit  him.’ 

To  Nicholson  himself  he  says  on  July  x — 

I have  got  a long  letter  (official)  from  Chamberlain,  who  asks  for  re- 
plies, twenty  in  number,  in  respect  of  the  raids  you  reported.  If  any- 
thing will  shut  your  mouth,  it  will  be  these  queries,  for  I often  find  it 
difficult  to  get  an  answer  to  one.  However,  if  you  can  answer  them  all, 
and  promptly,  when  replying  to  this  letter,  I shall  be  glad  if  you  will  ex- 
press your  regret  that  Chamberlain  has  been  annoyed,  and  say  you  had 
no  intention  to  reflect  on  the  force.  He  is  much  too  sensitive  in  such 
matters.  Still,  he  is  a fine  fellow,  and  will  do  the  force  much  good. 
Moreover,  I should  be  much  grieved  if  he  went  away  in  disgust,  whether 
the  cause  was  real  or  imaginary. 

Five  months  later  Chamberlain  was  quite  ready  to  forgive 
and  forget,  but  the  uncompromising  ‘ Nick  ’ still  held  out,  and 
was  still  convinced  that  ‘he  did  well  to  be  angry.’  John  Law- 
rence was  not  slow  to  use  the  leverage  upon  him  which  Cham- 
berlain's mood  offered. 

Camp,  near  Gujeranwalla:  Decembers,  1855. 

My  dear  Nicholson, — . . . I am  much  vexed  at  the  estrangement 

which  has  taken  place  between  you  and  Chamberlain,  and  I earnestly 
desire  to  see  you  reconciled.  Two  such  soldiers  ought  not  to  be  in  a 
state  of  antagonism.  I think  he  was  wrong  in  taking  exception  to  your 
remarks  on  the  post  system,  and  I defended  your  views  both  privately  and 
officially  to  him.  Still,  the  fact  that  he  did  not  feel  convinced  by  our 
arguments,  and  would  not  concur  in  our  conclusions,  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  not  be  friends.  Why  should  the  public  service  suffer,  which 
*it  must  do,  by  the  want  of  cordiality  between  you  ? Chamberlain,  in  his 
last  letter,  writing  on  this  subject  to  me,  says,  ‘ I never  considered  the 
question  personal ; and  even  the  official  discussion  was  buried  when  I 
last  addressed  you  on  the  subject.  If  I am  correct,  he  feels  cool  towards 
me.  But  I shall  be  happy  to  receive  him  with  the  same  feeling  of  re- 
spect and  admiration  which  I have  all  along  borne  towards  him.  He  has 
only  to  come  within  reach  for  me  to  extend  both  hands  towards  him,  and 


426 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


in  doing  so,  I shall  be  doubly  glad,  for  I shall  know  that  the  Government, 
of  which  we  are  the  common  servants,  will  be  the  gainer.’  I think  such 
sentiments  do  honour  to  Chamberlain,  and  I hope  you  will  reciprocate 
them,  forgiving,  if  you  cannot  forget,  the  past.  Chamberlain  is  a fine 
fellow,  and  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  not  more  men  of  his 
stamp  in  our  army.  We  all  have  our  defects,  and  he  has  his.  But  his 
good  qualities  far  outshine  his  faults.  I pray  you  to  consider  what  I say, 
for  you  have  not  a better  friend  or  a more  sincere  advocate  than  myself. 

It  only  remains  to  be  added  that,  after  many  a long  day,  the 
indefatigable  peacemaker  did  reap  the  fruit  of  his  labours  ; for 
he  was  able  to  make  Chamberlain  and  Nicholson  fast  friends, 
to  retain  them  in  the  Punjab  until  the  day  of  trial  came,  to  send 
them  down  in  succession  to  Delhi,  where  they  were  to  do  the 
work  of  heroes  ; and  when  Nicholson  had  received  his  death- 
wound,  and  was  lying  on  his  death-bed,  it  was  Neville  Cham- 
berlain who  tended  and  nursed  him  during  the  last  terrible  ten 
days  of  suffering  with  more  than  a brother’s  care.  Upon  the 
long  struggles  which  had  enabled  him  to  retain  two  such  men 
in  the  Punjab,  that  they  might  do  such  work  in  it  and  outside 
of  it,  John  Lawrence  must  then,  at  all  events,  have  looked  back 
with  unmixed  pride  and  satisfaction  ; and  it  is,  perhaps,  worth 
my  while,  from  that  point  of  view  alone,  to  have  dwelt  so  long 
upon  them. 

I may  end  this  part  of  my  subject  by  quoting  a letter  or  two 
written  by  John  Lawrence  to  Major  Coke,  who  was  engaged  in 
a double  quarrel  of  his  own  with  Chamberlain  and  Edwardes  ; 
and  one  or  two  also  to  Napier  on  the  Engineer  difficulty,  which 
had  now  reached  the  acute  stage.  They  will  sufficiently  ex- 
plain themselves. 

Murri : July  12,  1855. 

My  dear  Coke, — I was  very  sorry  to  read  your  letter  of  the  9th,  with 
its  enclosures,  for  I see  these  discussions  can  only  end  in  our  losing  you. 
It  seems  to  me  that  you  must  have  your  own  way  in  everything,  or  you 
will  cut  the  concern  ! Now,  considering  that  I hold  you  to  be  one  of 
our  best  men,  a credit,  an  honour,  and  a source  of  strength  to  the  Pun- 
jab force,  and,  indeed,  to  the  Administration  generally,  it  gives  me  real 
pain  to  see  the  line  you  adopt.  If  you  were  the  Brigadier  yourself,  you 
would  insist  on  having  your  own  way,  and  would  adhere  to  your  own 
views  and  policy.  If  this  be  the  case,  surely  you  should  be  prepared  to 
admit  those  of  Chamberlain. 

The  root  of  the  mischief  seems  to  be  that  he  is  a younger  soldier  than 
yourself.  Had  you  enjoyed,  early  in  life,  the  same  opportunities  of  dis- 
tinction that  he  did,  your  career  would  doubtless  have  been  equally 
brilliant,  equally  successful.  But  such  was  not  your  fate.  I do  not 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


427 


think  that,  since  you  joined  the  Punjab  force,  you  have  really  had  much 
of  which  to  complain.  You  got  a fine  command  at  once,  and  you  suc- 
ceeded shortly  afterwards  to  the  charge  of  a district,  though  you  had  re- 
ceived no  training  whatever.  This  gave  you  some  little  emolument  and 
much  influence  and  credit.  You  are,  at  this  moment,  the  only  officer 
on  800  miles  of  frontier  who  unites,  in  his  own  person,  civil  and  military 
power ! 

No  man  in  India,  be  his  position  what  it  may,  can  always  have  his 
own  way.  I,  assuredly,  have  not.  I am  continually  bending  to  this  cir- 
cumstance or  that — giving  in  this  case,  modifying  my  views  in  that. 
Much  of  my  time  is  taken  up  in  endeavouring  to  get  men  to  pull  to- 
gether, in  preventing  fine  fellows  from  falling  out.  Chamberlain  may 
have  his  defects,  but  I hardly  know  any  man,  perhaps  no  one  man,  who 
commands  so  generally  the  esteem  of  his  brother  officers.  I think  his 
selection  for  Brigadier  of  the  Punjab  force  was  universally  deemed  an 
excellent  one.  . . . 

If  you  will  listen  to  my  advice — and  it  is  that  of  a sincere  friend — let 
Government  decide  the  question  ; and  remain  quiet,  and  see  what  this 
war  in  the  Crimea  may  bring  forth.  I may  yet  see  you  a Brigadier 
storming  Russian  battalions  in  Persia  or  Georgia.  If  you  throw  up 
your  appointment  in  a huff,  you  cannot  fail  to  injure  your  reputation  and 
prospects. 

As  regards  the  public  works,  the  simple  fact  is  that  we  have  been  going 
too  fast,  and  have  exhausted  the  Treasury.  Moreover,  our  executive 
officers  carry  on  their  work,  and  give  us  no  accounts,  no  estimates,  and 
no  reports.  In  short,  they  have  taken  the  bit  into  their  own  mouths, 
and,  like  wayward  nags,  have  it  all  their  own  way.  Now,  the  getting 
them  into  order  and  replenishing  the  Treasuries  will  fall  in  together.  I 
have  resolved  to  act  as  the  House  of  Commons  does,  and  stop  the  sup- 
plies until  my  wishes  and  views  are  carried  out. 

But  these  efforts  at  peacemaking  were,  at  first,  not  more  suc- 
cessful than  had  been  his  efforts  in  the  Nicholson-Chamberlain 
case,  and  he  writes  again  : 

Murri : July  26,  1855. 

My  dear  Coke, — I have  two  letters  of  yours  as  long  as  my  arm  to  an- 
swer, and  little  time  to  do  it ; for  I have  more  writing  and  reading  than 
my  eyes  like  or  I can  get  through.  You  must  forgive  me  when  I say 
that  I think  you  take  an  exaggerated  and  unjust  view  of  matters.  How 
can  any  work  go  on  when  a man  says  that  unless  he  has  his  own  way  he 
will  resign  ? But  such  is  too  often  the  burthen  of  your  song.  Go  where 
you  will,  you  cannot  always  have  your  own  way.  If  you  go  home  and 
get  married,  and  sit  by  your  fireside  in  your  old  age,  do  you  think  that 
you  will  then  always  have  your  own  way?  Believe  me,  my  dear  fellow, 
in  all  situations,  in  all  circumstances,  we  must  bear  and  forbear,  and, 
to  a certain  extent,  yield  to  circumstances.  But  the  fault  I find  is  that 


428 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


you  cannot  restrain  your  feelings,  but  must  always,  in  every  difference 
of  opinion,  tender  your  resignation,  or  tell  us  you  are  off.  Such  a line 
almost  incites  a man  to  resist  you.  It,  as  it  were,  challenges  one  to  say 
‘ No.’  Brigadiers  and  Commissioners  are  placed  in  their  posts  to  con- 
trol commanding  officers  and  magistrates,  and  may  differ  from  them 
without  thinking  them  either  rogues  or  fools.  If  every  case  were  brought 
to  this  alternative,  no  Government  could  go  on.  What  would  you  say 
to  some  of  your  own  subordinates  telling  you  this  ? 

As  for  Edwardes  and  Chamberlain,  though  I may  not  always  agree 
with  them,  I think  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  two  finer  fellows  in  their 
way.  See  what  an  unreasonable  fellow  you  are.  If  Edwardes  was  brusque 
and  peremptory,  you  would  consider  him  a brute  ; as  he  is  conciliatory, 
he  is  an  ‘ oily  gammon.’  Well,  then,  what  must  they  think  of  you  but 
as  ‘ wayward  and  unreasonable  ’ unless  you  have  your  own  way  ? 

You  recollect  what  a row  you  got  me  into  about  the  * Kotul  ’ affair.  I 
do  not  say  this  to  vex  you,  but  had  it  not  ended  as  it  did,  I should  prob- 
ably have  been  compelled  to  send  in  my  istifa  (resignation)  also.  Well, 
you  desire  to  make  war  and  conclude  peace,  to  do  this  and  modify  that, 
and  all  off  your  own  bat ! Now  no  Government  can  stand  this.  No 
doubt  you  are  often  right,  but  not  always  ; because,  though  thinking 
usually  clearly  and  justly,  you  look  at  things  too  narrowly.  You  fancy 
all  the  world  is  reduced  to  the  Kohat  focus. 

When  you  tell  Chamberlain  that  you  will  have  your  own  selection  or 
resign,  from  that  moment  it  becomes  a struggle  with  you  two  for  suprem- 
acy. This  is  the  last  thing  that  I would  say  to  anyone  who  is  above  me. 
I would  reason,  argue,  and  expostulate  ; but  the  threat  to  resign  is 
simply  an  ultimatum,  which  admits  of  no  discussion.  Then  I think,  as 
you  yourself  seem  to  admit,  that  you  often  urge  your  views  and  wishes 
too  strongly.  After  having  said  your  say  and  expressed  your  opinion, 
why  reiterate  it  ? You  may  not  be  able  to  take  another  view  of  the 
matter,  but  why  not  keep  your  view  to  yourself?  why  dogmatically  and 
pertinaciously  force  your  opinions  on  others  ? It  is  this  defect  which 
goes  far  to  mar  your  real  merits.  ...  I have  written  you  frankly  and 
freely  my  sentiments,  and  I have  done  it  as  you  have  appealed  to  me. 

It  is  pleasant  to  add  that,  here  too,  a modus  vivendi  was  ulti- 
mately achieved  by  the  Chief  Commissioner’s  untiring  tact  and 
patience,  and  that  Coke  remained  in  the*  Punjab  till  he  was 
sent  down  at  the  head  of  his  splendid  regiment  to  Delhi.  Here 
he  found  full  scope  for  his  great  military  ability,  and  he  has, 
all  too  tardily,  in  1881,  received,  in  recognition  of  his  many 
services,  the  ‘ K.C.B.’  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  would  have 
been  so  glad  to  obtain  for  him  in  the  midst  of  the  Punjab 
troubles  of  1855. 

About  the  same  time  the  Engineer  episode,  as  I have  said, 
reached  its  turning-point.  ‘ Already  the  department  of  Pub- 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


429 


lie  Works,' says  John  Lawrence  on  June  25,  ‘gives  me  more 
trouble  and  anxiety  than  all  the  rest  of  the  Punjab.  The  Chief 
Engineer,  with  a hundred  good  and  noble  qualities,  is  no  man 
of  business.’  Appreciating  these  hundred  noble  qualities,  as 
well  as  the  splendid  works  which  Napier,  while  he  had  free 
scope,  was  carrying  out,  John  Lawrence  had  hitherto  forborne 
to  do  more  than  expostulate  with  him,  and  groan  over  his  un- 
business-like procedure.  But  now  a letter  from  Dorin,  the 
President  in  Council  during  the  absence  of  Lord  Dalhousie, 
deploring  the  emptiness  of  the  Public  Treasury,  no  longer  left 
him  any  choice  in  the  matter  ; for  an  immediate  and  immense 
reduction  of  expense  in  the  Public  Works  Department  was 
judged  to  be  imperatively  necessary.  The  case  had  already 
been  put  tenderly  before  Napier  by  John  Lawrence  thus  : 


Rawul  Pindi  : April  25,  185s. 

My  dear  Napier, — I have  been  thinking  a good  deal  over  what  was 
said  the  other  day  about  your  Department.  It  is  a subject  which  has,  for 
a long  time,  given  me  many  anxious  thoughts.  I do  not  like  the  way  in 
which  things  have  gone  on,  and  I have  wished  gradually  but  decidedly 
to  work  a change.  This  I have  attempted  by  putting  a pench  (a  twist  or 
screw),  so  far  as  possible,  on  new  undertakings  when  not  absolutely  ne- 
cessary, and  by  calling  for  estimates  and  explanations  where  the  work 
appears  necessary,  but  the  expense  doubtful.  I see  that  this  system 
chafes  and  distresses  you  ; that  it  causes  you,  to  use  your  own  words, 
‘ to  eat  your  own  heart.’  You  had,  as  you  say,  formerly  your  full  swing, 
and  were  allowed  to  do  exactly  as  you  liked.  Now,  you  are  brought  up 
at  every  turn. 

I must  here  say  that  I was  always  averse  to  that  system,  and  endeav- 
oured in  the  Board’s  time  to  enforce  some  check,  and  to  secure  the 
punctual  rendering  of  accounts.  I found  that  my  endeavours  were  fruit- 
less, and  only  caused  a row  between  Henry  and  myself.  So  I gave  it  up. 

I do  not  think  that  you  have  a more  sincere  friend  than  myself — not 
even  in  my  brother.  There  is  no  man  who  more  heartily  wishes  you 
well,  or  who  would  feel  more  grieved  at  misfortune  happening  to  you. 
But,  as  regards  public  matters,  both  from  principle  and  experience,  I 
see  the  necessity  of  rule  and  system.  I think  much  has  been  done  in 
the  Punjab  in  spite  of  neglecting  these  things  ; but  I also  believe  that 
nearly  as  much  would  have  been  done,  and  at  a less  cost,  by  adhering 
to  them.  But,  be  this  as  it  may,  Government  has  laid  down  a regular 
code  for  our  guidance  in  your  Department,  and  we  are  bound  either  to 
adhere  to  it,  or  to  represent  where  it  works  badly  and  get  it  modified. 
We  must  not  set  it  aside.  If  ever  I ask  you  to  give  me  a return,  or  to 
furnish  information  which  is  not  necessary,  or  which  I have  no  business 
with,  you  have  only  to  point  out  the  fact  to  ensure  a remedy. 


430 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


I 

Nor  did  John  Lawrence’s  letters  on  the  subject  to  Lord  Dal- 
housie  show  any  trace  of  bitter  feeling  towards  Napier.  He 
was  magnanimous  throughout. 

Murri : August  26,  1855. 

My  dear  Lord, — I have  delayed  answering  your  Lordship’s  note  of  the 
14th  July,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  say  something  satisfactory  about 
the  Executive  Department.  A great  deal  has  been  done  during  the  last 
two  months  towards  bringing  up  arrears  and  getting  things  into  order. 
And  I have  had  several  conversations  with  Napier,  who  has  promised  to 
do  all  I can  desire.  He  is,  of  course,  vexed  at  the  turn  matters  have 
taken,  and  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  convince  him  that  any  reform  is  re- 
quired. He  is  all  for  pushing  on  works  or  originating  new  ones.  But  he 
dislikes  details  and  accounts  of  all  kinds,  and  cannot  find  it  in  his  heart 
to  censure  anyone  under  him.  Indeed,  his  feelings  incline  him  to  de- 
fend anyone  with  whom  one  finds  fault.  He  has,  also,  no  proper  idea 
of  economy.  As  he  naively  observed  last  night,  he  had  no  idea  that  he 
could  go  on  too  fast,  but  supposed  that  Government  might  believe  that 
enough  was  not  being  done,  sufficient  money  not  being  spent. 

Your  Lordship  may  depend  on  my  doing  all  I can  to  get  things  placed 
on  a proper  footing  ; and,  if  possible,  I will  do  this  without  any  explo- 
sion with  Napier,  for  whom  I have  a great  regard.  He  has  the  most 
decided  aversion  to  estimates  of  all  kinds,  and  considers  that  they  are 
nothing  but  ‘ snares  to  entrap  the  Engineers.’ 

The  following  letter,  though  it  shows  that  there  had  been  a 
good  deal  of  heart-burning  on  Napier’s  part,  is  creditable  to 
both  men. 

Murri : August  28,  1855. 

My  dear  Napier, — I had  intended  writing  you  a few  lines  with  refer- 
ence to  our  conversation  on  Saturday,  before  I got  your  note  yesterday  ; 
but  I have  had  a heap  of  work  to  get  through. 

I must  begin  by  saying  that  I fully  enter  into  your  feelings,  and  am 
quite  certain  that  you  have  not  wished  to  act  in  opposition  to  my  views. 
The  difference  of  our  official  education,  the  difference  in  our  idiosyn- 
crasy, and  the  great  latitude  which  you  have  hitherto  enjoyed,  lead  us 
to  take  very  different  views  of  our  duties  and  responsibilities.  I have 
always  wished  to  have  a control  over  your  Department  in  the  Punjab, 
partly  because  I considered  it  was  required,  but  mainly  because  it  seemed 
a mere  matter  of  duty.  But  I really  did  not  know  how  to  effect  this 
without  giving  you  great  offence.  I went  on  at  first,  hoping  and  trusting 
that  matters  would  mend,  without,  perhaps,  acting  as  decidedly  as  I 
ought  to  have  done. 

For  a long  time  matters  were  left  to  your  sole  guidance.  I knew  that 
the  accounts  were  generally  in  arrears,  but  I did  not  know  that  so  many 
works  were  going  on  without  valid  authority,  as  has  subsequently  ap- 
peared to  be  the  case.  Had  I received  your  indexes,  progress  reports, 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


43i 


and  similar  returns  with  ordinary  punctuality,  I should  have  sooner  seen 
the  necessity  for  interference.  Even  when  I first  got  your  assignments 
I did  not  like  to  act  ; for  I did  not  perceive  from  them  what  was  the 
nature  of  the  works  for  which  the  money  was  required,  and  which  were 
and  which  were  not  sanctioned.  ...  It  would  be  absurd  for  me  to 
have  authority  in  your  Department  and  not  to  exercise  it.  I may  have 
done  this  too  abruptly,  too  harshly,  but  such  is  not  my  impression. 
From  kindly  feeling  to  yourself,  from  mere  motives  of  expediency,  I 
have  endeavoured  to  get  you  to  bring  your  department  into  order.  If 
‘ revolutions  are  not  to  be  effected  by  rose-water,’  neither  are  reforms  to 
be  made  without  vigorous  expression,  without  conveying  to  subordinate 
authorities  in  unmistakable  but  courteous  language  that  one’s  wishes 
must  be  carried  out. 

You  say  that  I speak  very  differently  from  the  style  of  the  official  let- 
ters which  are  issued  under  my  orders.  Perhaps  there  is  much  truth  in 
this  remark,  but  the  fact  is  that,  being  by  nature  passionate,  I place, 
as  far  as  I can,  a guard  over  my  conversation.  Being  also  sincerely 
desirous  not  to  hurt  your  feelings,  and  being  affected  to  a considerable 
degree  by  the  influence  of  your  own  courteous  and  conciliatory  demean- 
our, I may  have  led  you  to  think  that  I felt  less  strongly  than  I really 
did  on  the  shortcomings  (in  my  mind)  of  your  Department.  . . . 

You  must  forgive  me  if  I have  said  aught  in  this  to  distress  you.  I as- 
sure you  that  it  is  meant  kindly. 

An  extract  from  a despatch  written  by  Lord  Canning  to  Sir 
Charles  Wood,  some  time  after  the  suppression  of  the  Mutiny, 
furnishes  an  unintentional  but  a very  interesting  ex  post  facto 
commentary'  on  the  foregoing  correspondence. 

Camp,  Hoshiarpore,  on  the  Lahore  and  Peshawur  Road,  March  30,  i860. 

On  my  late  journey  to  and  from  Peshawur,  the  subject  of  the  road  to 
that  frontier  station  from  Lahore  necessarily  engaged  much  of  my  atten- 
tion. This  road  was  begun,  as  you  are  aware,  soon  after  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  Punjab.  The  utter  inadequacy  of  the  original  rough  esti- 
mates indicates  that  it  was  commenced  under  an  imperfect  appreciation 
of  the  difficulties  to  be  surmounted.  The  work  advanced  for  some  years 
with  the  free  expenditure,  but  also  with  the  vigour  and  ability  that 
usually  characterised  the  projects  of  Sir  Robert  Napier.  . . . My 

impression  before  traversing  this  road  was  that  the  expenditure  in  its 
construction  had  been  somewhat  reckless.  This  impression  has  been  a 
good  deal  modified  by  personal  inspection  of  the  work. 

Doubtless,  the  vigour  with  which  work  was  begun  and  carried  on  be- 
tween 1851  and  1856  in  a country  where  nearly  all  skilled  labour  was  a 
novelty,  and  where  wheeled  carriages  were  almost  unknown,  was  ac- 
companied by  a large  expenditure,  while  the  scale  and  solidity  of  the 
road  embankments,  and  the  high  class  of  gradients  adopted,  3 in  100, 


432 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


aimed,  at  once,  at  a more  costly  perfection  than  we  may  judge  to  have 
been  wise,  now  that  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking,  the  length  of  time 
required  for  its  completion,  and  the  consequent  liability  to  interruption 
by  failure  of  funds,  are  fully  appreciated.  But  without  shutting  my  eyes 
to  this,  I must  also  admit  that,  at  that  time,  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
Government  tended  rather  to  stimulate  than  check  vigourous  progress 
with  too  little  regard  to  calculations  of  cost.  And,  little  as  I desire  to 
tolerate  any  recurrence  to  this  system  of  wholesale  working  without 
proper  estimates,  I am  not  indisposed  to  the  belief  which  some  have  en- 
tertained, that  this  large  and  energetic  development  of  labour,  and  the 
expenditure  by  which  it  was  accompanied  on  this  and  other  great  works 
in  the  Punjab,  under  Sir  Robert  Napier’s  advice  and  general  direction, 
was  one,  at  least,  of  the  elements  which  impressed  the  most  manly  race 
in  India  with  the  vigour  and  beneficence  of  British  rule,  and,  under 
Providence,  tended,  through  the  maintenance  of  order  and  active  loy- 
alty in  the  Punjab,  to  the  recovery  of  Hindustan. 

I have  dwelt  at  considerable — perhaps  some  of  my  readers 
may  think  at  unnecessary — length  on  the  efforts  which  John 
Lawrence  made  to  ‘keep  his  team  together,’  and  on  the  suc- 
cess, remarkable  enough  when  we  remember  the  men  with 
whom  he  had  to  deal,  which  attended  them.  I have  already 
given  my  reasons  for  so  doing.  Such  efforts  were  of  the  very 
essence  of  the  man  and  of  his  work.  Without  them  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  point  out  how  different  would  have  been  the  con- 
dition of  the  Punjab  a few  years  later  when  the  Mutiny  broke 
out.  Instead  of  being  officered  by  men  who  knew  their  work, 
their  people,  and  their  chiefs,  almost  as  they  knew  themselves, 
it  would  have  been  officered  by  men  who,  from  no  fault  of  their 
own,  could  have  known  little  of  either,  and  the  newly  annexed 
province  must  then  have  been  a chief  source  of  anxiety  in- 
stead of  our  firm  support.  That  the  Punjab  Avas  wide  enough 
and  elastic  enough  to  hold  men  like  Nicholson,  like  Chamber- 
lain,  like  Coke,  like  Napier,  and  a host  of  others,  was  due,  as 
the  correspondence  I have  quoted  at  such  length  will  show,  to 
the  Chief  Commissioner,  and  the  Chief  Commissioner  alone. 

And  not  less  remarkable  than  the  way  in  which  John  Law- 
rence dealt  with  his  subordinates  was  the  way  in  which,  without 
sacrificing  an  iota  of  principle,  or  ever  using  his  words  to  con- 
ceal his  thoughts,  he  managed  to  work  harmoniously  through- 
out with  the  eminent  man  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Govern- 
ment. How  was  it  that  he  was  able  to  do  so  ? The  question 
does  not  admit  of  an  altogether  easy  answer,  nor  of  an  answer 
at  all  without  a closer  consideration  than  I have  hitherto  been 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES.  433 

led  to  give  to  the  character  of  one  of  the  most  commanding 
Governors-General  who  have  ruled  India. 

In  spite  of  the  great  gifts  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this 
biography  has  brought  into  sufficient  prominence,  or  rather, 
perhaps,  because  of  them,  Lord  Dalhousie  had  certain  faults, 
which  may  have  been  equally  observable.  He  was  proud,  am- 
bitious, and  imperious.  He  would  crush  anyone  who  disobeyed 
or  thwarted  him,  anyone  who  seemed  disposed  to  encroach  upon 
his  authority.  In  such  cases  he  had  no  bowels  of  compassion. 
‘ He  put  his  foot  down,’  was  one  favourite  expression  used  by 
John  Lawrence  about  his  chief,  when  he  had  been  aroused  by 
any  untimely  show  of  independence.  ‘ He  met  my  request  by 
an  imperial  “ No,”  ’ was  another.  ‘ The  Lord  Sahib  is  a pepper- 
pot,’ said  John  Peter  Grant,  one  of  the  ablest  of  his  subordin- 
ates. The  higher  the  position  or  the  dignity  of  the  man  or  body 
of  men  who  kicked  against  the  pricks,  the  more  vigorously  were 
the  pricks  applied.  It  was  said  of  him  that  while  he  had  no 
mercy  on  Boards  and  Commissioners  and  Chifefs,  he  spared 
humble  Deputy  Collectors,  and  let  them  off  easily.  How  he 
had  dealt  with  Lord  Gough,  with  Henry  Lawrence,  and  with 
Henry  Lawrence’s  self-reliant  assistants  in  the  Punjab,  during 
his  early  days  as  Governor-General,  I have  shown  in  previous 
chapters.  His  letters  of  rebuke,  in  such  cases,  were  as  clear 
and  polished  as  steel.  If,  therefore,  there  was  very  much  in 
him  to  admire,  there  was,  in  my  opinion,  not  so  much  to  love. 
In  particular,  he  was  deficient  in  one  quality,  without  which  no 
man,  however  able,  can  stand  quite  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
rulers  of  men.  He  was  deficient  in  the  sympathy  of  the  imagin- 
ation. I do  not  here  refer  to  that  moral  sensibility  which  is 
more  or  less  common  to  humanity  at  large,  which  disposes  men 
to  rejoice  with  those  who  rejoice,  and  weep  with  those  who 
weep,  and  which,  if  a man  be  of  any  finer  mould,  makes  him 
feel  the  pain  that  he  is  driven  to  inflict  on  a high-minded  sub- 
ordinate, at  least  as  acutely  as  if  it  were  inflicted  by  others  on 
himself.  For  in  this  Lord  Dalhousie  was,  by  no  means,  de- 
ficient. A soldier’s  son — for  his  father  had  been  Commander- 
in-Chief  in  India — he  burst  into  tears  when  he  heard  that  the 
14th  Dragoons  had  run  away  at  Chillianwallah.  He  wept  as 
he  read  to  Sir  Frederick  Halliday  the  accounts  he  had  received 
of  the  murder  of  Agnew  and  Anderson  at  Mooltan,  and  he  burst 
into  a perfect  flood  of  tears,  again,  when  he  saw  the  same  trusted 
subordinate  for  the  first  time  after  the  death,  of  the  wife  whom 
Vol.  I.-28 


434 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


he  had  loved  most  tenderly,  and  who  had  died  of  the  effects  of 
sea-sickness  just  as  she  came  in  sight  of  the  English  shore. 
When  the  news  of  Lady  Dalhousie’s  death  first  reached  him  he 
shut  himself  up  for  weeks  in  Government  House,  refusing  to  see 
anyone  whom  it  was  not  absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  see, 
but  conscientiously  and  pathetically  transacting  all  the  business 
of  the  Government  on  paper,  as  well  as  he  had  ever  done.  His 
letters  to  Henry  Lawrence  during  his  anxiety  about  his  brother 
and  sister,  who  were  prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  Sikhs,  are 
full  of  earnest  and  respectful  sympathy  ; while  his  letters  to 
John  Lawrence  show  from  first  to  last  and,  in  an  ever-increas- 
ing degree,  the  most  tender  and  affectionate  interest  in  his 
welfare.  Nor  were  there  any  members  of  his  personal  staff 
who  could  not  mention  many  incidents  showing  his  kind  and 
thoughtful  consideration  for  them.  They  were,  many  of  them, 
devoted  to  him  ; and  the  few  words  that  he  managed  to  speak, 
or  the  few  lines  that  he  managed  to  write,  in  the  midst  of  his 
press  of  work,  showing  his  appreciation  of  their  services,  to 
officers  at  a distance  who  would  not  have  naturally  expected  any 
such  special  recognition  from  the  * Lord  Sahib,’  were  always 
treasured  up  in  their  memories  or  their  desks  as  a lifelong  pos- 
session. Nothing,  therefore,  that  I am  about  to  say  implies 
that  he  was  wanting  in  genuine  kindness  of  heart,  or  in  what  is 
ordinarily  called  sympathy. 

It  was  rather  in  that  much  wider  and  rarer  kind  of  sympathy 
which  is  as  much  intellectual  as  moral,  and  depends  mainly  on 
the  vividness  of  the  imagination  that,  such  defects  as  Lord  Dal- 
housie  had,  appear  to  me  to  have  lain.  Lord  Dalhousie  seems, 
from  his  letters,  hundreds  of  which  lie  before  me,  to  have  been 
unable  to  clothe  himself  sufficiently  with  the  feelings,  the  pre- 
judices, the  aspirations,  the  ideas  of  those  over  whom  he  ruled  ; 
and  he  was  unable  therefore  to  understand  how  the  natives  of 
India,  recognising,  as  many  of  them  did,  the  general  benevo- 
lence of  our  intentions  and  the  undoubted  beneficence  of  our 
rule,  were  yet  disposed  to  look  back,  with  yearning  and  with 
regret,  on  the  days  when,  if  they  wTcre  oppressed,  plundered, 
murdered,  they  were  so  by  men  of  their  own  race,  their  own 
language,  or  their  own  creed.  He  was  unable,  again,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  to  picture  to  himself  the  cumulative  effect  upon  the 
native  mind  of  the  policy  of  annexation  which  he  had  openly 
avowed,  and  of  the  numerous  additions  to  the  empire,  justifiable 
or  otherwise,  which,  in  accordance  with  it,  circumstances  had 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


435 


forced  on  him,  or  he  on  circumstances.  In  particular,  I doubt 
whether  he  thought  that  the  shock  given  to  the  religious  feel- 
ings and  the  immemorial  customs  of  the  people  by  the  blows 
which  he  struck  at  the  sacred  right  of  adoption,  were  deserving 
of  any  serious  regard  on  the  part  of  an  enlightened  English 
ruler.  Nor  is  there  in  the  whole  of  his  letters,  brilliant  and  in- 
cisive and  racy  as  they  all  are,  a single  sentence  which  inclines 
the  reader  to  pause  and  say,  as  he  does,  again  and  again,  when 
he  is  reading  the  much  less  brilliant  and  incisive  letters  of  Met- 
calfe or  Outram,  of  Henry  or  John  Lawrence,  ‘ Here  is  a man 
whose  chief  claim  to  rule  India  was  that  he  so  thoroughly  under- 
stood her  people.’  If,  therefore,  there  have  been  no  abler,  or 
more  commanding,  or  more  conscientious,  or  more  successful 
Governors-General  of  India  than  Lord  Dalhousie,  there  have 
been,  in  my  opinion,  Governors-General  who  were  more  sym- 
pathetic with  the  natives,  and  more  beloved. 

He  was,  however,  in  every  way  a man  of  commanding  powers. 
His  faults,  such  as  they  were,  were  those  not  of  a small,  but  of  a 
truly  great  man.  Small,  almost  to  insignificance,  in  stature,  he 
had  a mighty  spirit — 

Ingentes  animos  angusto  in  pectore  versat. 

Weak  in  health,  he  did  more  than  the  work  of  the  very  strong- 
est man.  Afflicted  with  a constitutional  disease,  which  made  it 
a torture  to  him  even  to  put  on  his  clothes,  which  often  con- 
fined him  to  his  room,  and  disabled  him  from  walking  across  it 
even  when  it  was  ‘as  level  as  a billiard-table,’  he  yet  traversed 
India  from  end  to  end,  saw  everything  with  his  own  eyes,  and 
discharged  every  duty  of  his  high  office,  that  office  which  ‘ en- 
nobles and  kills’  its  holders,  during  the  almost  unprecedented 
term  of  eight  years,  with  a thoroughness,  a promptitude,  a pre- 
cision, and  a dignity  in  which  he  has  had  few  equals.  His  work 
connected  with  the  Punjab  alone  might  have  been  thought 
enough  to  occupy  the  energies  of  any  ordinarily  able  man. 
Again  and  again,  as  we  read  his  correspondence  with  the  Law- 
rence brothers,  and  note  the  view,  alike  comprehensive  and 
minute,  which  he  was  able  to  take  of  every  incident  and  charac- 
ter on  the  Punjab  stage,  filled  as  it  was  by  able  men,  each  of 
whom  in  his  time  played  many  parts,  we  can  hardly  bring  our- 
selves to  believe  that  the  new  province  was  but  a fraction  of  his 
whole  field  of  duty,  and  that  he  was  directly  responsible,  during 


436 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


a part  of  his  eight  years,  for  some  five  or  six  other  provinces 
which  he  had  annexed,  as  well  as  for  the  ponderous  charge 
which  had  been  originally  committed  to  him,  and  which,  as  he 
says  himself,  had  overtaxed  and  overburdened  the  greatest  of 
his  predecessors.  In  short,  if  he  was  not  a Heaven-sent,  he 
was,  at  least,  a born  ruler  of  men.  If  he  was  ambitious,  his  am- 
bition was  that  of  Caesar.  There  was  little  that  was  personal  and 
nothing  that  was  ignoble  about  it.  He  was  every  inch  a king. 
He  felt  that  he  could  rule,  and  that,  with  a view  to  the  happiness 
of  the  millions  entrusted  to  him,  it  was  right  that  he  should  do  so. 

John  Lawrence  was  a man,  in  his  way,  of  quite  as  commanding 
powers,  and  of  quite  as  masterful  a will,  as  Lord  Dalhousie.  He 
was  therefore  the  last  man  whom  we  should  have  expected,  be- 
forehand, to  get  on  well  with  him  as  a subordinate.  But  we  are 
now,  perhaps,  more  in  a position  to  see  how  it  was  that  he  did  so. 

The  Punjab,  John  Lawrence’s  charge,  was  Lord  Dalhousie’s 
pet  province.  It  was  his  own  child,  his  own  creation.  John 
Lawrence  might  be  its  Chief  Commissioner,  but  woe  be  to  him 
if  he  ever  forgot  that  he  was  not  its  supreme  ruler  ! If  he  ever 
did  forget  this,  and  if,  acting  on  his  own  responsibility,  he  in- 
vited a friend  to  serve  within  its  sacred  precincts,  or  became 
involved  in  a frontier  disturbance  beyond  them,  without  first 
applying  to  the  Governor-General,  he  too  was  called  to  account, 
and  felt  what  might  be  the  weight  of  Lord  Dalhousie’s  heel. 
But  here  his  tact  and  his  loyalty  to  superior  authority  came  in. 
His  notions  of  duty  to  Government  he  carried  to  a degree  which 
one  might  have  expected  to  find  in  a disciple  of  Hobbes,  but 
hardly  in  a man  of  such  popular  sympathies  and  of  such  com- 
manding powers  as  his.  It  was  these  notions  of  public  duty 
which  helped  him  to  put  up  with  occasional  rebukes  from  his 
chief,  which,  if  they  had  come  from  any  other  quarter,  would 
have  made  him  turn  and  rend  his  assailant.  But  Lord  Dal- 
housie was  much  too  great  a man  not  to  wish  his  subordinates 
to  speak  their  mind  frankly  to  him.  This  John  Lawrence  al- 
ways did.  There  was  not  a step  which  Lord  Dalhousie  took  in 
the  Punjab,  not  an  appointment  he  made,  not  an  expression  he 
dropped,  which  John  Lawrence,  if  he  was  unable  to  approve  of 
it,  did  not,  with  all  his  ‘ heroic  simplicity,’  fasten  upon  and  con- 
trovert. This  done,  if  he  could  not  succeed  in  modifying  his 
chief’s  views,  he  thought  himself  not  only  at  liberty,  but  bound 
in  honour  to  carry  them  out.  And  it  was  this  mixture  of  re- 
sistance and  of  submission,  of  loyalty  and  of  tact,  and  yet  of 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


437 


plainness  or  even  abruptness  of  speech,  which,  combined  with 
his  other  infinitely  greater  qualities,  exactly  suited  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  and  enabled  two  such  master  spirits,  if  I have  read  their 
characters  and  correspondence  aright,  to  move,  in  the  same 
sphere,  with  mutual  appreciation,  and  without  coming  into  any- 
thing like  dangerous  collision. 

The  feelings  of  regard,  respect,  and  admiration,  which  John 
Lawrence’s  character  had  early  awakened  in  Lord  Dalhousie, 
soon  developed  into  a warm  and  brotherly  affection.  There 
was  a general  agreement  in  policy  between  the  two  men,  but 
with  a sufficient  amount  of  difference  to  give  piquancy  and  inter- 
est and  life  to  all  their  communications.  Only  on  one  occasion, 
in  the  whole  correspondence,  does  John  Lawrence  seem  to  have 
taken  seriously  to  heart  anything  which  was  said  to  him  by  his 
chief.  He  had  objected  strongly  to  the  appointment  of  a cer- 
tain civilian  to  a post  for  which  he  did  not  think  him  fitted,  and 
the  Governor-General  said  to  him  in  reply,  good-humouredly, 
‘You  know,  John,  you  are  a good  hater.’  Misunderstanding, 
as  it  would  seem,  the  meaning  of  the  term,  and  thinking,  in  the 
innocency  of  his  heart,  that  Lord  Dalhousie  meant  more  than 
he  said,  John  Lawrence  wrote  back  earnestly  protesting  against 
the  imputation.  His  letter  is  highly  characteristic,  as  is  also 
Lord  Dalhousie’s  reply. 

April  21,  1855. 

My  dear  Lord, — . . . I cannot  but  express  my  regret  that  your 

lordship  should  have  reason  to  think  me  a good  hater.  If  I am  any 
judge  of  my  own  character,  I should  not  say  that  such  is  the  case.  I do 
not  know  a man  in  the  world  against  whom  I have  such  feelings.  There 
are  public  officers  both  here  and  elsewhere  of  whom  I have  a mean  opin- 
ion ; there  are  several  in  the  Punjab  whom  I have  felt  it  my  duty  to  re- 
port ; but  I know  not  one  whom  I would  wish  to  injure  personally.  Every 
public  officer  whom  I have  considered  inefficient,  no  doubt  hates  me,  and 
thinks  that  I hate  him.  This  is  quite  natural.  I know  that  I have  strong 
and  decided  opinions,  which,  when  the  occasion  required  it,  I have  sel- 
dom hesitated  to  state,  with  little  reservation.  But  this  I have  felt  to  be 
my  duty,  a necessity  of  my  position,  if  I wished  to  see  the  administration 
successful.  In  such  instances  I have  spared  neither  the  man  I liked,  nor 
those  for  whom  I have  no  such  feeling ; and  in  making  recommendations 
for  promotions  it  has  been  my  earnest  desire  to  be  impartial. 

Lord  Dalhousie  replied  as  follows  : — 

May  14,  1855. 

My  dear  Lawrence,  . . . You  seem  hurt  at  what  I said,  and  ex- 
press your  belief  that  you  have  not  acted  unjustly  towards , and  are 

incapable  of  doing  so  towards  any  man. 


433 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


If  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  look  back  to  my  letter  of  March  28,  you 
will  see  that  I did  not  allege  injustice  on  your  part,  either  generally  or  in 
this  particular  case.  On  the  contrary,  I expressly  stated,  ‘ I have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  you  have  been  unjust  to  this  man.’ 

You  protest  against  my  supposing  you  hated , or  that  you  are  a 

* good  hater.’  On  these  points,  my  good  friend,  I can’t  retract.  I re- 
member the  grounds  of  your  opposition  to  his  appointment  in  1849,  and 
the  feeling  you  showed  towards  him  then. 

As  for  the  general  proposition,  you  admit  that  you  have  strong  and  de- 
cided opinions  which  you  have  seldom  hesitated  to  express  without  re- 
servation. Just  so  ; and  it  is  in  entertaining  and  retaining  such  decided 
adverse  opinions  that  consists  what  I,  and  Dr.  Johnson  before  me,  called 
a ‘ good  hater.’  But  saying  that  you  are  ‘ a good  hater’  does  not  imply 
that  you  are  partial  or  unjust,  any  more  than  saying  (as  I might  say)  that 
you  are  a staunch  friend  would  imply  that  you  are  unfair  and  practise 
favouritism. 

But  Lord  Dalhousie’s  long  term  of  office,  with  its  brilliant 
achievements  in  peace  and  war,  its  unexampled  ‘ progress, 
moral  and  material,’  its  railways  and  its  electric  telegraphs,  its 
conquests  and  its  annexations,  was  now  drawing  to  its  close  ; 
and  that  it  was  so,  the  ablest  of  his  lieutenants  must  have  been, 
half  pleasantly,  half  painfully,  reminded  by  the  letter  which,  in 
view  of  their  approaching  separation,  was  written  to  him  by  his 
chief. 

Ootacamunde  : May  1,  1855. 

My  dear  John, — Your  treaty  arrived  yesterday,  and  I lose  no  time  in 
expressing  to  you  the  great  gratification  with  which  I have  looked  upon 
it  in  its  complete  form,  and  in  acknowledging  the  obligations  under 
which  you  have  laid  me  by  the  successful  conclusion  of  a treaty  which  I 
conceive  will  be  regarded  as  of  much  importance  both  in  India  and  in 
England,  and  which,  consequently,  will  be  viewed  as  honourable  to  my 
administration.  I have  recorded  my  opinions  and  feelings  in  language 
strong  and  sincere,  and  I hope  that  you  and  your  coadjutor  will  feel  that 
the  Government  has  really  appreciated  your  exertions,  and  has  wished 
to  do  full  justice  to  your  services. 

The  additional  claim  which  you  have  thus  established  to  the  appro- 
bation of  the  Crown  and  my  personal  gratitude  renders  this  a fitting  mo- 
ment for  asking  you  a question  which  my  approaching  relinquishment 
of  the  office  of  Governor-General  would  not  have  allowed  me  to  delay 
much  longer. 

Your  services  in  India  have  been  so  pre-eminent,  that  you  cannot  fail 
to  be  conscious  of  the  fact,  or  entertain  a doubt  of  my  feeling  it  to  be  as 
much  a personal  duty  as  a personal  pleasure  to  obtain  for  you  some 
fitting  recognition  of  your  merits  by  the  grant  of  honours  from  the 
Crown. 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


439 


The  question  which  I have  to  ask  you  is  as  to  the  form  in  which  such 
honours  would  be  most  acceptable  to  you — whether  you  would  prefer  the 
grant  of  a baronetcy  or  the  star  of  a Knight  Commander  of  the  Bath. 
The  former  is,  so  far,  a higher  honour  that  it  is  hereditary,  but  many 
persons  would  question  the  advantage  of  that  quality  in  it,  unless  ample 
fortune  could  be  handed  down  with  the  honour. 

Whichever  you  shall  prefer,  it  shall  be  my  most  earnest  duty  and  en- 
deavour to  obtain  for  you  before  I leave  India.  You  know,  of  course, 
that  I cannot  guarantee  your  getting  either.  But  I can  assure  you  of  my 
resolution  to  move  heaven  and  earth  to  accomplish  your  wishes  for  you, 
and  I think  they  can  hardly  refuse  it  to  your  claims  and  my  solicita- 
tions. 

Always,  my  dear  John,  very  sincerely  yours, 

Dalhousie. 

A letter  which  John  Lawrence  wrote  on  this  subject  to  his 
intimate  friend,  Herbert  Edwardes,  before  giving  the  answer  to 
Lord  Dalhousie  which  he  had  already  pretty  well  made  up  his 
mind  to  give,  is  of  biographical  interest. 

Murri : May  24.  1855. 

My  dear  Edwardes, — I enclose  a letter  which  I received  from  the 
Governor-General  this  morning.  I hope  he  will  not  forget  ‘ my  coadju- 
tor’ when  asking  for  honours  for  me.  I may  say  with  perfect  truth  that 
I consider  you  deserve  at  least  as  much,  if  not  more,  for  the  late  treaty 
than  I do. 

My  main  object,  however,  in  writing  to  you  is  to  ask  your  advice  as  to 
the  answer  I should  give.  My  chief  pleasure  in  obtaining  any  honours 
is  the  pleasure  I shall  give  to  my  sweet  wife  ; though  I would  not  have 
liked  to  have  gone  home  and  retired  from  public  life  without  some  ac- 
knowledgment of  my  services.  The  point  is,  whether  to  select  the  bar- 
onetcy or  the  K.C.B.  My  wife  is  inclined  to  the  former  as  the  greater 
honour,  though  she  will  no  doubt  be  satisfied  with  my  choice.  I am  in- 
clined to  prefer  the  1 star,’  for  the  reasons  to  which  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral points.  I have  no  fortune  to  gjve  my  son  ; and  anything  which  I* 
may  leave,  I should  feel  it  a sacred  duty  to  divide  among  all  my  chil- 
dren. Now  a poor,  I may  say  a moneyless  baronet,  would  be  a sad  fig- 
ure. The  honour  might  be  some  incentive  to  exertion,  though  not  a 
good  one.  I rather  fear  it  might  prove  an  inducement  to  look  to  others 
rather  than  one’s  self  for  success.  Kindly  give  me  your  advice  on  this 
point  by  return  of  post.  I cannot  conclude  this  note  without  saying 
that  in  fighting  to  get  you  made  Commissioner  of  Peshawur,  it  turns  out 
that,  like  the  bandy-legged  smith  in  the  ‘ Maid  of  Perth,’  I was  fighting 
for  my  own  hand. 

His  letter  to  Lord  Dalhousie  was  to  a similar  effect,  and  once 
more  the  Governor-General  replied. 


440 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


June  26.  1855. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — I received  yesterday  your  letter  of  the  1st  inst. 
I repeat  my  assurance  that  I will  do  my  best  to  obtain  for  you  the 
K.C.B.  before  I leave  India.  I cannot  think  it  possible  that  I can  fail 
in  such  an  attempt ; for  no  man  has  won  it  more  fairly  or  deserved  it 
better  than  yourself. 

I think  you  have  done  quite  wisely  in  preferring  it  to  the  baronetcy. 
My  letters  from  England  give  me  no  clue  to  the  name  of  my  successor. 
Indeed,  they  do  not  know  it  themselves  ; and  the  present  Government 
are  afraid  to  select,  in  their  present  infirm  condition. 

My  wooden  leg  is  rather  better  of  late.  How  is  yours  coming  on  ? 

Ever  yours  sincerely, 

Dalhousie. 

The  name  of  Lord  Dalhousie’s  successor  was  known  in  India 
very  shortly  after  this  letter  was  written,  and  it  is  the  name  of  a 
man  never  to  be  mentioned  by  Englishmen  except  with  feelings 
of  gratitude  and  veneration.  But  his  gifts  were  of  a widely 
different  kind  from  Lord  Dalhousie’s,  and  no  one,  probably, 
could  estimate  more  accurately  the  immense  loss  that  Lord  Dal- 
housie, whatever  the  excellence  of  his  successor,  would  be  to 
India,  than  his  chief  lieutenant.  The  following  letter  brings 
out  his  feelings  on  the  subject  clearly  enough. 

Murri : August  28,  1855. 

My  dear  Lord, — I am  glad  to  hear  your  Lordship  thinks  we  shall  like 
Lord  Canning,  and  I hope  he  will  be  satisfied  with  us.  Still  I must  say 
that  your  Lordship’s  loss  will  be  sincerely  felt.  A stimulus  has  been 
given  to  the  general  administration  of  India,  and  a general  vigour  infused 
into  all  departments,  which,  if  only  carried  on,  must  wipe  out  the  re- 
proach under  which  the  Government  formerly  laboured. 

To  myself,  personally,  the  change  will  be  great.  I can  hardly  expect 
to  have  so  kind,  so  considerate,  and  so  friendly  a master.  As  one  grows 
in  years,  one  feels  almost  a disinclination  to  form  new  relations,  even  on 
the  public  account.  Much  of  the  wjrk  in  the  Punjab  is  both  delicate  and 
difficult.  The  Administration  requires  both  vigour  and  judgment.  The 
chief  officer  has  to  control  a large  body  of  his  countrymen,  drawn  from 
different  professions  and  educated  in  various  schools.  He  possesses  little 
prestige,  and  no  power  but  what  he  derives  from  his  own  character.  Do 
what  he  will,  he  must,  to  a great  extent,  depend  on  the  view  which  may 
be  taken  of  his  conduct  by  those  at  a distance. 

To  your  Lordship  the  return  to  your  own  country  will  probably  be  a sub- 
ject of  unmixed  pleasure,  but  to  the  friends  you  leave  behind,  among  whom 
1 am  one  of  the  sincerest,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  a cause  of  real  regret. 

The  approaching  change  in  his  relations  to  the  'head  of  the 
Government  must  have  been  still  more  vividly  brought  home  to 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


441 


John  Lawrence  by  a letter  which  invited  him  to  pay  a farewell 
visit  to  his  chief  at  Calcutta  and  be  introduced  to  his  successor. 


The  Neilgherries : September  26,  1855. 

You  will  have  learnt,  by  this  time,  that  it  is  not  true  that  Lord  Canning 
is  coming  out  immediately.  He  will  come  when  I want  to  be  relieved. 
This  will  be  either  February  1 or  March  1 ; probably  the  latter. 

I do  not  doubt,  in  the  smallest  degree,  your  receiving  his  full  confi- 
dence and  cordial  support  in  the  important  office  you  hold.  Of  course, 
you  cannot  be  altogether  on  the  same  terms  you  have  been  with  me  dur- 
ing the  years  of  close  personal  acquaintance  and  regard  which  we  have 
enjoyed  together.  But  soon  that  may  come.  And  that  it  may  come  the 
sooner,  I should  be  very  glad  if  circumstances  would  admit  of  your  run- 
ning down  to  Calcutta  to  pay  me  a parting  visit,  and  to  become  person- 
ally known  to  Lord  Canning  before  my  departure.  I hope,  too,  to  invest 
you  with  the  K.C.B.  at  that  time. 

Such  an  arrangement  would  be  a real  pleasure  to  me,  and  would  be,  I 
am  sure,  of  public  value  with  reference  to  the  future.  You  and  I both 
know  well  the  efficiency  of  personal  intercourse. 

For  myself,  I look  forward  to  my  return  to  Scotland  with  very  different 
feelings  from  those  with  which  I once  did.  If  I wish  to  leave  India,  it  is 
mainly  because  I feel  I am  no  longer  in  a condition  to  serve  her  as  I 
ought  to  do.  1 feel  I could  do  much  for  her  were  I in  vigour  ; and  I re- 
gret, for  her  sake  as  well  as  for  my  own,  to  surrender  the  opportunity. 

Of  all  from  whom  I part  in  India,  there  is  not  one  from  whom  I shall 
sever  myself  with  more  sincere  regret  than  from  yourself,  my  dear  John  ; 
and  I hope  that  our  friendship  will  be  still  maintained,  though  with  a 
wider  interval  between  us.  I have  not  been  well  of  late,  and  I rather 
dread  the  last  three  months  in  Calcutta ; but  I expect  to  be  there  at  the 
end  of  November. 


Ever  yours  sincerely, 


Dalhousie. 


In  the  intermediate  autumn  John  Lawrence  had  hoped  to  pay 
his  long-intended  and  often  postponed  visit  to  Cashmere  ; but 
it  was  once  more  put  off  by  the  serious  illness  of  his  wife,  and 
by  the  strong  probability  that  she  would  be  obliged  to  return  to 
England.  ‘My  wife  is  very  unwell,  and  the  doctors  say  must  go 
home  this  year.  This  has  bothered  me  a good  deal,  and  I don’t 
like  leaving  her  even  for  a time,  as  we  must  be  separated  so 
soon.  ...  I should  not  mind  going  too,  but,  with  seven 
children,  cannot  afford  to  do  so.  Sometimes  I think  of  taking 
her  to  Cashmere,  at  other  times  of  giving  up  this  trip  and  stay- 
ing here  (Murri)  until  it  be  cool  enough  to  take  her  down.’ 
Happily  his  wife  rallied,  and  the  thought  of  separation  was 


442 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


given  up  for  the  time.  In  November  he  and  she  went  into  camp 
as  usual  for  the  winter  months  ; but  the  rough  life,  the  heat  of 
the  tents  by  day,  and  the  cold  by  night,  were  too  much  for  her. 
She  was  taken  so  ill  on  the  way  down  to  Lahore  that  they  were 
obliged  to  stop  at  a small  police  station  on  the  wayside — the 
only  cover  that  could  be  got — for  some  twenty  days,  ten  of  them 
at  Gukkur,  and  ten  near  Gujeranwalla.  Again  the  doctors 
urged  that  she  should  return  to  England,  and  during  her  illness 
her  passage  was  taken,  and  all  arrangements  made  for  her  de- 
parture. But  on  her  partial  recovery  she  again  rebelled,  and 
declaring  that  if  she  was  not  equal  to  Indian  life  with  her  hus- 
band, much  less  would  she  be  equal  to  English  life  without  him, 
she,  once  again,  won  the  day.  It  was  a happy  thing  for  her  and 
for  her  husband  that  she  did  so.  Had  she  not  stood  firm,  the 
most  faithful  of  wives  would  have  been  absent  from  her  husband 
during  the  greatest  crisis  of  his  life,  the  Indian  Mutiny.  She 
would  have  heard  much  of  what  he  did,  for  all  England  and  all 
India  were  ringing  with  his  praises.  But  she  would  have  heard 
and  not  seen.  Instead  of  an  interval  of  only  thirty  miles,  which, 
in  case  of  necessity,  he  or  she  could  have  traversed  in  a night, 
seven  thousand  miles  of  ocean  would  have  rolled  between  them  ; 
and  now  that  his  deedful  life  is  over,  almost  the  only  blank  in 
the  united  happiness  of  the  most  happy  of  married  lives  would 
have  been  the  very  two  years  in  which  each  would  have  given 
most  to  have  been  within  hail  of  the  other,  to  have  been  able  to 
share  in  company  the  extremity  of  the  peril,  and  so  to  have  in 
company  doubled  the  joys  of  the  great  deliverance. 

John  Lawrence  stayed  at  Lahore  for  a month  or  so,  and  on 
February  1st,  1856,  as  soon,  that  is,  as  his  wife  was  able  to 
move,  they  set  out  for  Calcutta  to  pay  their  final  visit  to  Lord 
Dalhousie.  They  left  their  two  little  children  at  Lahore  under 
the  care  of  Mrs.  Macpherson,  the  wife  of  John  Lawrence’s  in- 
defatigable Military  Secretary,  and  started  for  a complete  holi- 
day. It  was  the  first  holiday  which  John  Lawrence  had  allowed 
himself  to  take  since  the  end  of  his  furlough  some  fourteen 
years  before,  and  even  this  holiday  he  appears  to  have  be- 
grudged himself!  ‘I  am  very  sorry  to  go,’  he  says  to  Ed- 
wardes  in  a letter,  which  hints  also  at  other  troubles  that  were 
cropping  up  around  him. 

I do  not  anticipate  much  pleasure  or  comfort  from  the  trip,  and  I shall 
be  up  to  my  neck  in  arrears  of  work  on  my  return.  No  decisive  reply 
has  come  regarding  the  honours,  and  1 may  have  to  come  back  like  a 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


443 


sharmindah  billi  (a  shamefaced  cat).  . . . As  to  Nicholson  I will 

never  help  him  to  leave  the  Punjab,  though  I will  never  oppose  his 
going.  I feel  very  sore  about  him.  You  might  as  well  run  rusty  as  he 
should.  By  the  bye,  he  shot  a man  the  other  day  who  went  at  him  with 
a drawn  sword.  . . . Yes,  Oude  is  a good  job,  and  though  I know 
that  Outram  is  a good  man,  I do  not  see  how  he  can  work  it  properly.  I 

hear is  to  be  one  of  his  Commissioners.  He  is  an  able  fellow,  but 

not  fit  for  such  a post,  I should  say.  However,  why  should  I fash  my- 
self with  such  matters  ? I only  hope  they. will  not  want  some  of  my  good 
men.  I would,  however,  make  them  a present  of  a number  of  fellows, 
with  a right  good  will. 

It  may  be  well  to  mention  here  that  it  was  during  the  illness 
of  Lord  Dalhousie  at  Ootacamunde,  during  the  preceding 
year,  that  the  Oude  question  had  reached  it  crisis,  and  that 
Lord  Dalhousie  had  there  composed  his  masterly  Minute  sum- 
ming up,  for  the  ‘convenience  of  those  to  whom  it  would  belong 
to  decide  th'e  future  of  Oude,’  the  evidence  which  had  been 
collected  as  to  the  inveterate  abuses  of  its  government,  and 
recommending  something  like  its  annexation.  It  is  a docu- 
ment which,  in  spite  of  his  intense  physical  suffering,  shows  no 
symptom  of  mental  disturbance  or  weakness.  It  is  one,  more- 
over, which  must  carry  conviction  to  almost  every  impartial 
mind.  For  it  was  based  on  the  evidence  and  on  the  recom- 
mendations of  such  staunch  defenders  of  native  dynasties,  and 
men  so  intimately  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  as  Col- 
onel Sleeman,  General  Low,  and  Sir  James  Outram,  and  was 
endorsed  by  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the  Court  of  Directors, 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  and  of  the  Cabinet  at  home,  of  which 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  a member. 

The  details  of  the  measure  and  its  justification  lie  beyond  the 
scope  of  this  biography.  But  it  should  be  mentioned  that  John 
Lawrence  quite  approved  of  the  even  more  stringent  course 
taken  by  the  authorities  in  England,  the  annexation  of  the  ter- 
ritory and  the  abolition  of  the  throne.  Like  the  annexation  of 
the  Punjab,  and  unlike,  I think,  some  other  annexations  of 
Lord  Dalhousie,  it  was  justified  not  only  by  treaty  stipulations, 
but  by  the  consciousness  of  the  duty  we  owed  to  the  people  of 
the  province,  the  duty  of  saving  them  from  a despotism  which 
was  as  feeble  as  it  was  cruel  and  wasteful,  and  which  our  sup- 
port alone  had  saved  from  the  two  correctives  which,  after  the 
manner  of  Orientals,  might  otherwise  have  been  applied  to  it, 
insurrection  or  assassination.  ‘I  suppose,’  John  Lawrence 


444 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


writes  to  his  friend  Courtenay  on  January  9,  ‘that  the  orders 
regarding  Lucknow  have  come,  and  I hope  for  annexation. 
Anything  short  of  it  is  a mistake.  Will  not  all  the  people  re- 
joice except  the  fiddlers,  barbers,  and  that  genus  ? I wish  I 
was  thirty-five  instead  of  forty-five,  and  had  to  put  it  in  order ! 
In  two  years  the  administration  ought  to  equal  that  of  the  Pun- 
jab. It  will  be  much  more  easily  managed,  having  no  danger- 
ous frontier.’ 

John  Lawrence  arrived  at  Calcutta  on  February  17,  1856, 
and  his  first  wish  when  there  seems  to  have  been  to  get  away 
again  ! The  idea  of  the  work  which  he  had  left  behind  him, 
and  which  must  fall,  during  his  absence,  on  Montgomery,  who 
was  already  overburdened,  while  Macleod,  the  Financial  Com- 
missioner, was  in  his  usual  arrears,  seems  to  have  haunted  him. 
Lord  Dalhousie  being  still  at  Barrackpore,  he  took  up  his 
quarters  at  Mountain’s  Hotel.  It  was  the  height  of  the  Calcutta 
season,  and  the  smart  dresses,  the  constant  parties,  the  state 
dinners  and  ceremonials  at  Government  House  connected  with 
the  departure  of  the  old  and  the  arrival  of  the  new  Governor- 
General,  formed  a sufficiently  startling  contrast  to  the  simple 
life,  the  domestic  pleasures,  and  the  ceaseless  round  of  duties 
from  which  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  and  his  wife 
had  seldom  cared  to  emerge. 

On  the  morning  after  his  arrival  he  wrote  to  Montgomery  as 
follows  : — 

I arrived  here  yesterday  by  the  railroad.  [It  had  then  been  construct- 
ed as  far  as  Burdwan,  seventy  miles  from  Calcutta  ] We  are  both  glad 
to  have  got  over  the  trip.  My  wife  is  well  and  hearty,  but  a good  deal 
tired.  I only  wish  we  were  both  back  at  Lahore.  The  trip  is  a severe 
one  for  a lady,  and  will  be  worse  a month  hence.  We  saw  Major  Mar- 
tin and  your  little  son  Henry  at  Shergotty,  both  looking  well.  Martin 
was  to  stop  a day  or  two  at  Burdwan,  but  he  will  try  and  see  Henry  before 
they  sail  on  the  24th.  I assure  you  it  is  no  joke  in  this  Babylon  finding 
out  anyone.  I was  wandering  about  this  morning  vainly  endeavouring  to 
find  out  various  people’s  domiciles.  ...  I have  not  seen  the  Gov- 
ernor-General yet.  He  is  at  Barrackpore,  not  very  well,  but  by  no  means 
so  ill  as  people  make  out.  He  does  not  leave  India,  I am  sorry  to  say, 
until  the  7th  proximo.  This,  on  all  accounts,  is  very  vexatious. 

Lord  Dalhousie  welcomed  his  Chief  Lieutenant  on  arrival  in 
a touching  note  from  Barrackpore.  It  was  the  last  that  he  was 
to  write  to  him  in  India,  and  nearly  the  last  that  he  was  ever  to 
write  to  him. 


I 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES.  445 

My  dear  old  Boy, — I have  just  received  your  letter,  and  as  I shall  be 
in  Calcutta  to-morrow  evening  for  good,  I will  not  give  you  the  trouble 
of  coming  out  here,  but  will  see  you,  and  with  sincere  pleasure,  on  Tues- 
day forenoon.  As  for  my  health,  Jan  La’rin,  I am  a cripple  in  every 
sense. 

Ever  yours  most  sincerely, 

Sunday  evening.  DALHOUSIE. 

Unfortunately,  the  letters  which  John  Lawrence  wrote  during 
this  interesting  fortnight  were  exclusively  business  letters,  and 
I have  been  able  to  glean  from  them,  and  from  conversations 
with  the  few  survivors  who  know  anything  of  what  occurred, 
little  that  is  significant  respecting  it.  Diaries  and  private  letters 
there  are  none,  and  I cannot  help — at  this  more  perhaps  than  at 
any  other  period  of  my  work — wishing  that  some  third  person 
had  been  privileged  to  be  present,  and  had  recorded  something 
of  what  was  said  by  men  who  had  done  and  dared  so  much  to- 
gether, and  who  were  in  every  way  so  remarkable.  One  strik- 
ing episode  connected  with  the  parting  scene  when  Lord  Dal- 
housie,  with  death  stamped  upon  his  face,  was  about  to  receive 
Lord  Canning  on  the  steps  of  the  Government  House,  I reserve 
for  a future  occasion  when  it  will,  perhaps,  come  in  still  more 
appropriately. 

Much  to  Lord  Dalhousie’s  disappointment,  the  Gazette  did 
not  arrive  from  England  in  time  to  give  to  him  the  pecu- 
liar pleasure  of  conferring,  and  to  John  Lawrence  the  pecu- 
liar pleasure  of  receiving  at  his  hands,  the  Knight-Commander- 
ship  of  the  Bath.  But  any  vexation  which  John  Lawrence 
may  have  felt  in  consequence  must,  in  part  at  least,  have 
been  removed  by  two  unexpected  occurrences.  It  was  dur- 
ing this  farewell  visit  that  Lord  Dalhousie  drew  up  a Minute 
recommending  that  the  Punjab  should  be  raised  to  the  dig- 
nity of  a Lieutenant-Governorship,  and  that,  as  a matter  of 
course,  its  Chief-Commissioner  should  become  its  first  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor; and  secondly,  John  Lawrence  met  here— 
for  the  first  and  last  time  since  the  tragical  parting  at  La- 
hore— his  brother  Henry,  and  during  three  days  was  able  to 
have  pleasant  intercourse  with  him.  ‘I  saw  Henry,’  he  writes 
to  Edwardes,  ‘ in  Calcutta  for  three  days.  I never  saw  him 
looking  better.  His  beard  is  longer  and  grayer  than  formerly, 
but  he  himself  looked  strong  and  hearty.  He  was  full  of  go- 
ing home,  and  seemed  half  inclined  to  go  then,  but  a case  in 
Jypore  detained  him.  I think  he  will  certainly  go  next  year.’ 


446 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


The  Minute  of  the  Governor-General  on  the  change  of  the 
Punjab  Chief-Commissionership  into  a Lieutenant-Governor- 
ship is  a document  of  historical  as  well  as  biographical  im- 
portance. 

Calcutta:  February  25,  1856. 

1.  The  completion  of  the  proceedings  which  have  been  taken  for  the 
establishment  of  British  rule  in  Oude,  imposes  upon  me  the  obligation 
of  placing  upon  record  my  conviction  of  the  necessity  which  has  arisen 
for  affording  some  relief  to  the  Government  of  India  from  the  ponderous 
burden  with  which  it  is  now  overladen  and  overtasked. 

2.  When  I assumed  the  administration  of  India  eight  years  ago,  it  was 
universally  spoken  of  as  a most  laborious  and  responsible  office.  It  will 
not  be  difficult  to  estimate  how  infinitely  more  responsible  and  more 
laborious  it  has  now  become,  when  the  additions  which  have  been  made 
to  the  duties  of  the  Government  of  India  since  1848  are  recalled  to 
mind. 

3.  The  administration  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Punjab,  the  administra- 
tion of  the  province  of  Pegu,  of  the  Straits  Settlements,  of  the  Tenasser- 
im  provinces,  of  Nagpore,  and  of  the  assigned  districts  of  Hyderabad, 
have  all  since  1848  been  imposed  upon  the  Government  of  India.  To 
these  new  duties  is  now  added  the  laborious  task  of  organising  and  di- 
recting the  administration  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude.  Thus  the  direct 
government  of  several  former  provinces,  and  of  new  territories,  produc- 
ing a revenue  of  not  less  than  four  millions  sterling,  has  fallen  upon  the 
Governor-General  in  Council  since  1848. 

4.  Besides  all  this,  many  new  burdens  have  been  imposed  upon  the 
supreme  Government  by  changes  and  improvements  in  internal  man- 
agement. The  whole  direction  of  the  Post  Office  throughout  India  now 
rests  ultimately  with  the  supreme  Government.  The  control  of  the 
electric  telegraph  throughout  India  has,  in  like  manner,  been  vested  in 
the  supreme  Government.  The  special  superintendence  of  questions 
relating  to  railways  in  India  has  been  allotted  to  the  Governor-General 
in  Council,  and  the  Secretariat  of  the  Department  of  Public  Works, 
controlling  the  undertakings  of  the  whole  empire,  has  been  created 
and  placed  under  his  immediate  orders. 

5.  The  tendency  of  business  in  all  departments  is  to  increase.  But 
when  to  that  general  tendency  has  been  superadded  the  direct  charge  of 
the  affairs  of  seven  kingdoms  and  provinces,  and  of  the  many  depart- 
ments, each  of  which  embraces  the  whole  extent  of  the  Indian  Empire, 
it  can  hardly  be  matter  of  surprise  that  the  burden  should  be  now  be- 
coming too  great  for  mortal  shoulders  to  bear. 

6.  It  is  true  that  the  government  of  Bengal  has  been  given  into  the 
charge  of  a Lieutenant-Governor.  But  this  measure  relieved  only  the 
Governor-General.  It  made  no  difference  to  the  other  members  of  the 
supreme  Government,  while  the  institution  of  the  Legislative  Council 
has  largely  increased  their  labours  and  the  demands  upon  their  time. 


1S54-S6  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


447 


7.  The  evil  has  been  continually  and  rapidly  augmenting,  insomuch 
that  I perceive  a very  material  increase  of  daily  business  since  the  month 
of  February,  1855. 

8.  I have  never  asked  for  relief,  and  would  have  been  extremely  reluc- 
tant to  do  so  if  I had  remained  in  charge  of  the  Government.  But  as 
my  act  cannot  now  be  possibly  misconstrued,  nor  ascribed  to  a desire  to 
save  myself,  I have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  my  conviction  that  the 
addition  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude  to  the  business  of  the  Government  of 
India  will  render  it  hardly  possible  that  the  Governor-General  in  Coun- 
cil should  be  able  to  perform  all  the  duty  which  will  now  fall  upon  the 
supreme  Government. 

9.  It  is  indispensable  to  find  some  mode  of  relief. 

10.  The  function  which  the  Government  of  India  has  for  some  time 
past  assumed,  of  taking  into  its  own  hands  the  direct  administration  of  new 
provinces,  has  been  pronounced  by  the  public  to  have  been  a very  whole- 
some one.  But  it  is  a function  which  is  foreign  to  the  nature  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India,  whose  proper  business  is  to  control  other  Governments, 
not  to  become  a local  Government  itself.  Gradually,  therefore,  and  as 
the  new  provinces  become  fit  to  walk  alone,  the  direct  power  of  adminis- 
tration in  such  provinces  should  be  laid  down  by  the  Government  of  India. 

11.  It  is  by  giving  effect  to  this  principle,  if  it  should  receive  the  as- 
sent of  my  honourable  colleagues,  that  I propose  to  find  the  means  of 
affording  relief  to  the  Governor-General  in  Council. 

12.  The  Punjab  has  been  for  very  nearly  seven  years  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  Governor-General  in  Council.  It  is  now,  I think,  in 
a condition  to  be  formed  into  a separate  charge.  My  proposal  is  that 
the  Punjab  should  be  formed  into  a Lieutenant-Governorship,  under  the 
power  given  by  the  statute  ; and  that  Mr.  John  Lawrence,  the  very  able 
and  eminent  man  who  has  been  associated  with  its  government  from  the 
first,  should  be  appointed  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Punjab. 

13.  I am  aware  of  no  reason  why  a province  should  not  be  constituted 
a Lieutenant-Governorship  because  it  is  not  a regulation  province. 

14.  If  it  should  be  thought  that  the  Punjab  by  itself  would  constitute 

too  small  a jurisdiction  for  a Lieutenant-Governorship,  I would  then  pro- 
pose that  the  Lieutenant-Governorship  should  also  include  the  province 
of  Scinde.  The  addition  of  Scinde  would  not  materially  add  to  the  ex- 
tent of  the  financial  charge,  but  it  would  augment  the  territorial  charge 
very  considerably 

18.  In  any  case  I beg  very  strongly  to  advise  that  the  Punjab  should  now 
be  constituted  a Lieutenant-Governorship  with  Scinde,  or  without  it. 

19.  The  creation  of  a Lieutenant-Governorship  rests  with  the  Court  of 
Directors.  If  the  Honourable  Court  should  sanction  the  creation  of  that 
office  the  nomination  to  it  will  rest  with  my  successor.  I feel  very  cer- 
tain that  his  judgment  and  inclination  will  equally  lead  him  to  select  for 
that  office  the  man  whom  universal  acclamation  would  at  once  select — 
John  Lawrence. 


(Signed) 


Dalhousie. 


448 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


The  Governor-General’s  proposition  was  received  ‘ with  ac- 
clamation ’ by  the  members  of  his  Council,  a Council  including 
men  so  distinguished  in  various  ways  as  General  Low,  John 
Peter  Grant,  and  Barnes  Peacock.  A few  sentences  from  the 
Minute  of  the  most  eminent  of  them  all,  who  afterwards  became 
Sir  John  Peter  Grant  and  Governor  of  Jamaica,  may  fitly  find 
a place  here. 

In  every  point  of  view  it  seems  to  me  that  the  time  anticipated  by  the 
framers  of  the  last  Charter  Act  has  now  arrived,  and  that  the  territory 
on  the  banks  of  the  Indus  should  be  immediately  constituted  a distinct 
Government,  under  a Lieutenant-Governor  of  its  own.  It  will  be  thought 
by  every  man  in  India  a happy  accident,  that  this  change  cannot  fail  to 
raise  to  the  rank  he  deserves  to  hold,  one  of  the  most  able  and  success- 
ful administrators  holding  office  in  India.  ...  I believe  that  it  is 
more  especially  to  Scinde  that  the  union  will  be  beneficial.  Whatever 
may  be  the  reason,  it  is  certain  that  hitherto,  while  the  current  civil  and 
military  expenditure  has  been  profuse,  the  results  have  been  less  en- 
couraging in  Scinde  than  in  any  other  newly  acquired  district  on  this 
side  of  India.  This  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  any  want  of  personal  ca- 
pacities for  civil  duties  in  the  officers  employed  in  Scinde,  at  least  of 
late  years.  I cannot  see  reason  to  believe  that  the  stationary  (if  we  were 
to  judge  by  the  revenue  tables,  we  should  say  the  back-going)  condition 
of  Scinde  is  owing  to  natural  and  unavoidable  causes.  It  is  thus  only 
to  the  system  that  we  have  to  look  for  a cause.  If  Scinde  is  united 
to  the  Punjab,  it  will  fall  under  a revenue  system  which  has  converted 
the  North-West  Provinces  into  a garden,  and  is  now  doing  the  same 
thing  in  the  Punjab.  Why  should  it  fail  to  have  the  same  effect  in 
Scinde  ? 

Sir  Barnes  Peacock,  who  was  an  excellent  lawyer,  expressed 
his  opinion  more  concisely  but  with  equal  emphasis  thus  : — 

I agree  in  thinking  that  the  Punjab  should  be  constituted  a Lieutenant- 
Governorship,  and  in  my  opinion  it  is  very  desirable  that  Scinde  should 
be  united  with  it  under  one  Government.  I cordially  concur  with  the 
encomium  which  has  been  bestowed  on  Mr.  John  Lawrence. 

Lord  Canning  landed  in  Calcutta  on  the  last  day  of  February, 
1856,  and  was  received  by  Lord  Dalhousie  on  the  steps  which 
have  witnessed  the  making  and  unmaking  of  so  many  kings  ; 
and  by  one  of  the  most  rapid  but  most  striking  and  picturesque 
of  ceremonials,  he  had  ‘within  five  minutes  of  his  arrival,’ as 
he  wrote  to  a friend  at  home,  become  Governor-General  of 
India.  For  a week  the  outgoing  and  incoming  rulers  remained 
together  in  Government  House,  engaged  in  conference,  so  earn- 


1854-56  HIS  CHIEF  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES. 


449 


est  and  so  prolonged  that,  as  Lord  Canning  again  wrote  home, 
he  had  been  ‘ unable  to  take  more  than  one  look  out  of  doors 
during  the  whole  time.’  IIow  much  there  was  for  the  one  man 
to  impart  and  for  the  other  to  receive  and  to  assimilate,  anyone 
who  has  skimmed  the  pages  of  this  biography  may  form  some 
slight  conception  ; no  one,  perhaps,  but  those  very  few  men 
who  have  tilled  the  office  of  Governor-General  themselves,  have 
not  sunk  under  its  weight,  and  have  lived  to  look  back  upon  it, 
can  have  any  adequate  idea. 

In  the  intervals  of  their  conferences  John  Lawrence  saw,  as 
it  had  been  Lord  Dalhousie’s  wish  that  he  should  do,  much 
of  his  new  chief,  and  made  upon  him  an  impression  the  strength 
of  which  is  to  be  measured,  not  so  much  by  the  time  they  spent 
together,  as  by  the  severity  of  the  test  to  which  it  was  to  be  ex- 
posed, when  the  storm  burst  over  the  country,  and  made  John 
Lawrence,  for  the  time,  almost  as  truly  Governor-General  of 
the  north  and  north-west  of  India  as  Lord  Canning  was  of  the 
east  and  south. 

On  March  6,  Lord  Dalhousie  set  sail  from  Calcutta.  His 
embarkation  was  witnessed  by  a vast  concourse  of  Europeans 
and  of  natives,  not  one  of  whom  could  fail  to  respect  and  ad- 
mire the  ruler  who  had  done  so  much  to  enlarge  the  empire,  to 
develop  its  resources,  to  elevate  the  condition  of  its  masses  ; 
who  had  worked  so  fearlessly  and  thoroughly  in  accordance 
with  the  faith  that  was  in  him,  and  now,  worn  out  by  his  la- 
bours, was  going  home  to  die.  Among  those  who  ‘ accompanied 
him  to  the  ship  ’ was  of  course  the  man  whom  he  most  re- 
spected, and  most  regretted  of  all  whom  he  was  leaving  behind 
him.  He  was  still  simple  ‘John  Lawrence,’  for  the  Gazette, 
though  it  was  on  its  way  to  India,  did  not  meet  Lord  Dalhousie’s 
eye  till  he  touched  at  Ceylon.  It  contained  the  names  of  Sir 
William  Sleeman  and  of  Sir  James  Outram  as  well  as  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence ; and  hardly  had  the  Chief  Commissioner 
reached  Lahore  when,  with  the  news  of  the  honour  which  had, 
at  last,  been  bestowed  upon  him,  he  received  also  the  warm 
congratulations  of  Lord  Dalhousie  written  from  his  ship  at  sea. 

H.C.S.  Feroze.  At  sea  : March  20,  1856. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — The  home  news  at  Ceylon  showed  me  your  name 
in  the  Gazette  as  K.C.B.  at  last.  You  would  take  for  granted  my  joy 
in  this  recognition  of  your  merits  and  services.  But  I must  give  you  joy 
nevertheless  in  words,  and  I do  it  from  my  heart.  No  man  ever  won  the 
honour  better,  and  of  all  your  relatives  and  friends,  not  one  has  greater 
Vol.  I. — 29 


450 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1854-56 


gratification  in  seeing  honour  done  to  you  than  I have.  Pray  offer  my 
warmest  congratulations  and  my  kindest  wishes  to  Lady  Lawrence. 

I was  very  miserable  in  parting  from  you  all  upon  the  ghaut  that  day. 
Of  all  I leave  behind  me,  no  man’s  friendship  is  more  valued  by  me,  no 
man’s  services  are  so  highly  estimated  by  me,  as  yours.  God  bless  you, 
my  dear  John ; write  to  me  as  you  promised,  and  believe  me  now  and 
always 

Your  sincere  friend, 

Dalhousie. 

To  Sir  J.  Lawrence,  K.C.B. 

Thus  one  great  epoch  in  John  Lawrence’s  life  had  come  and 
gone.  He  had  reached  the  point  which,  as  in  the  case  of  his 
brother  Henry,  has  been  so  fatal  to  the  peace  of  mind,  if  not  to 
the  whole  career  of  some  of  our  best  Indian  administrators,  when 
he  had  to  accommodate  himself,  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  powers 
and  his  experience,  as  best  he  might,  or  as  far  as  might  be  need- 
ful, to  a change  of  master.  A trial  under  the  best  of  circum- 
stances such  a change  must  always  be.  For  unrestrained  inter- 
course, full  sympathy,  and  intimate  friendship  must  be  succeeded, 
for  the  time  at  least,  by  an  atmosphere  of  strangeness,  of  reserve, 
and  of  constraint.  How  he  was  able  to  meet  this  trial,  and  other 
infinitely  greater  ones,  we  shall  see  hereafter.  But  at  this  crit- 
ical point  in  his  career,  ere  yet  the  first  rumblings  of  the  im- 
pending storm  have  been  heard  in  India,  and  while  his  province 
is  still  in  the  midswing  of  its  peaceful  progress,  this  chapter  may 
perhaps  find  its  most  fitting  termination. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


JOHN  LAWRENCE  AND  AFGHANISTAN.  THE  BREWING  OF 
THE  STORM.  1856—1857. 

An  interval  of  little  more  than  a year  separates  the  departure 
of  Lord  Dalhousie  from  the  great  outbreak  which  is  to  trans- 
form the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  into  its  Dictator,  and 
I propose  in  this  chapter,  the  last  that  I am  able  to  devote  to 
his  peaceful  rule,  to  describe,  as  fully  as  its  importance  requires, 
or  as  space  permits,  the  interview  between  Sir  John  Lawrence 
and  Dost  Mohammed  at  Peshawur,  which  helped  so  much  to 
determine  the  attitude  of  the  Afghans  towards  us  throughout 
the  Mutiny,  and  the  attitude  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Afghanis- 
tan throughout  the  whole  of  his  subsequent  career.  I propose 
also  to  quote,  incidentally,  such  extracts  from  his  letters  as  ap- 
pear-to  bring  out  any  points  in  his  administration,  his  character, 
or  his  opinions  which  may  not,  hitherto,  have  had  sufficient 
stress  laid  on  them,  or  have  any  bearing  on  the  mighty  conflict 
which,  almost  unnoticed,  was  now  so  near  its  birth. 

I have  already  spoken  of  the  trial  which  a change  of  masters 
must  necessarily  involve  to  a man  of  the  great  ability,  of  the 
pronounced  views,  and  of  the  vast  experience  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence. ‘ I hope  it  is  not  true,’  he  had  written  to  Lord  Dalhousie 
in  the  preceding  year,  ‘ that  Lord  Canning  is  coming  out  at 
once,  and  that  we  must  lose  your  Lordship  as  soon  as  people 
say.  I must  say  that  I shall  sincerely  regret  your  Lordship’s 
departure  from  this  country,  though  I trust  it  will  be  for  your 
own  comfort  and  advantage.  In  an  appointment  like  mine  it 
seems  essential  that  I should  possess  the  personal  confidence  of 
the  Governor-General,  and  I can  hardly  hope  to  be  as  fortunate 
with  your  Lordship’s  successor  as  I have  been  with  you.  Should 
this  prove  to  be  the  case,  I may  soon  have  the  pleasure  of  see- 
ing your  Lordship  in  England,  and  I trust  it  will  be  with  re- 
newed health  and  increased  honours.’ 

There  could  hardly  be  a greater  contrast  between  two  high- 


452 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


minded  and  able  men  than  that  between  Lord  Dalhousie  and 
his  successor.  But  John  Lawrence’s  personal  intercourse  with 
the  new  Governor-General  at  Calcutta,  and  the  frank  and  easy 
tone  of  Lord  Canning’s  letters,  the  first  of  which  congratulated 
him  warmly  upon  his  honours,  and  only  regretted  that  Lord 
Dalhousie  had  not  been  able  to  confer  them  on  him  in  person, 
soon  put  him  at  his  ease  and  reassured  him  as  to  the  future. 
‘ I like  Lord  Canning,’  he  writes  to  his  former  chief  a few  months 
after  his  departure,  ‘ as  your  Lordship  anticipated,  very  much. 
He  is  kind,  courteous,  and  considerate,  as  well  as  prompt  and 
able.  I hope  he  may  remain  in  India  for  my  time,  and  come  up 
and  see  the  Punjab.’ 

Lord  Canning  had  scarcely  had  time  to  master  the  routine 
work  of  his  high  office  when,  much  to  his  disgust,  he  found 
himself  in  the  immediate  prospect  of  a war  with  Persia.  His 
farewell  speech  at  the  banquet  which,  according  to  custom,  had 
been  given  him  by  the  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company 
before  he  left  England,  had  revealed  to  the  world  the  man  and 
his  policy  in  lines  as  clearly  chiselled  as  was  his  own  noble 
countenance.  It  was  plain  that  he  coveted  no  military  renown, 
nor  any  addition  to  the  vast  responsibilities  which,  with  equal 
modesty  and  courage,  he  declared  that  he  would  do  his  best  to 
face.  The  quarrel  with  Persia,  therefore,  was  none  of  his 
seeking.  Its  origin  is  rather  to  be  sought  far  back  in  the  blind 
folly  which  had  led  up  to  the  disgraces  and  disasters  of  the 
first  Afghan  war.  That  fever  fit  had  long  since  passed  away, 
and  there  were  few  men  indeed  in  England  or  in  India  who 
did  not  feel  that  we  had  been  guilty  of  a blunder  as  well  as  of  a 
crime,  when  we  endeavoured  to  impose  a monarch  of  our  own 
arbitrary  choice  on  a free  and  a reluctant  people.  The  awaken- 
ing had  been  a rough  one.  But  the  dreams  of  a fevered  brain 
have  an  after-effect  upon  the  system,  even  when  they  have  long 
since  been  recognised  to  be  but  dreams.  What  we  had  failed 
to  do  at  Cabul,  we  must  still  attempt,  after  a manner,  to  do  at 
Herat,  a place  which  lay  some  two  hundred  miles  further  from 
our  Indian  Empire.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  we  had  grown 
wiser.  Our  aim  was  not  so  much  to  put  any  particular  man 
upon  the  throne  of  Herat,  as  to  prevent  certain  persons  from 
seizing  it.  Herat,  lying  as  it  does  between  Afghanistan  and 
Persia,  was,  if  we  could  have  our  own  way,  to  belong  to  neither. 
It  was  not  to  belong  to  the  Barukzyes,  for  we  had  injured  Dost 
Mohammed  too  much  to  make  us  wish  unnecessarily  to  increase 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


453 


his  power.  It  was  not  to  belong  to  Persia  ; for  it  was  an  axiom, 
then  as  now,  with  all  who  have  studied  the  subject,  that  Persia 
was  a puppet  in  the  hands  of  Russia,  and  that  if  the  Persians 
occupied  Herat,  it  would  be  Russia  rather  than  Persia  that 
would  be  knocking,  not  at  the  gate  of  India — that  feat  of  geo- 
graphical discovery  was  reserved  for  a later  age — but  at  the 
gate  of  Afghanistan.  It  was  in  this  belief  that  an  attempt  made 
by  Persia  on  Herat  in  1853  had  been  resolutely  resisted  by  us, 
and  a promise  extracted  from  the  Shah  to  respect  its  indepen- 
dence. Hut  the  Crimean  War  had  followed  ; and  the  Shah, 
caring  less  for  the  English  who  had  taken  Sebastopol  than  for 
the  Russians  who  had  threatened  Khiva  and  taken  Kars,  now 
again  began  to  look  wistfully  towards  Herat.  Diplomatic  rela- 
tions between  the  two  courts  were  broken  off,  and  Dost  Mo- 
hammed once  more  turned  to  us  for  aid  against  the  common 
foe.  The  Home  Government  took  the  matter  into  its  own  hands, 
and  on  July  11,  1856,  sent  an  ultimatum  to  Persia  intimating  that 
an  attack  upon  Herat  would  involve  her  in  war  with  England. 

Lord  Canning  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  were  alike  disgusted  at 
the  prospect  of  the  ‘ inglorious  and  costly  operations  in  Per- 
sia’ which  thus  opened  out  before  them  ; and  they  were  hard: 
ly  better  pleased  with  the  idea  of  a new  treaty  with  Afghan- 
istan, and  of  the  complications  in  which  it  might  involve  us. 
But  if  war  there  was  to  be,  it  was  better,  as  they  both  thought, 
that  we  should  have  the  Afghans  as  our  allies  than  as  our  enemies; 
and  if  only  the  Afghans  would  be  satisfied  with  a supply  of 
money  and  of  muskets,  then  the  worst  danger  of  all, — the  pas- 
sage of  an  English  army  through  Afghanistan,  and  a renewed 
English  interference  with  Afghan  politics, — might  be  avoided. 
A naval  demonstration  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  the  landing  of 
a small  British  force  on  its  shores,  would  suffice  for  our  part  of 
the  business,  and  the  march  of  an  Afghan  army  towards  Herat 
would  do  all  the  rest. 

So  Lord  Canning  addressed  himself  to  his  task  with  a good 
heart,  wrote  to  John  Lawrence  asking  what  force  he  would  be 
able  to  supply  from  the  Punjab  Irregulars  for  the  expedition,  in- 
vited him  to  express  his  general  ideas  on  the  subject,  and,  finally, 
consulted  him  on  the  delicate  question  of  the  chief  command. 

Most  private.  July  28,  1856. 

My  dear  Sir, — In  your  letter  of  April  17  you  speak  of  the  great  im- 
portance of  selecting  a good  man  for  the  command  of  the  Persian  expe- 


454 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


dition,  and  it  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  exaggerate  it.  You  say,  with 
equal  truth,  that  he  should  possess  large  political  as  well  as  military  ex- 
perience, and  be  in  full  vigour.  I agree  entirely,  but  where  is  there  such 
a man  ? If  you  have  any  such,  or  anyone  who  approaches  the  mark,  in 
your  eye,  I beg  of  you  to  tell  me.  ...  I beg  you  to  give  me  your 
most  private  thoughts  on  the  matter. 

The  two  men  whom  Lord  Canning  had  specified  as  possess- 
ing some  of  the  requirements  for  the  post  were  Sir  H.  Somerset 
and  General  S.  Cotton.  The  answer  of  John  Lawrence  is  so 
characteristic  of  him,  does  such  honour  to  both  his  head  and  his 
heart,  and  is  such  a pleasant  foil  to  the  tragical  parting  of  the 
two  brothers  at  Lahore,  that  I quote  it  in  full. 


Murri : August  9,  1856. 

My  Lord, — I beg  to  acknowledge  your  Lordship’s  notes  of  the  28th 
ult.  I have  looked  carefully  through  the  list  of  officers  of  H.  M.  and 
the  Company’s  services  in  India,  and  the  only  men  whom  I can  think  of 
for  such  a command  as  that  of  an  expedition  into  Persia,  are  those  shown 
in  the  annexed  list.  I have  noted  in  a few  words  the  character  which 
each  officer  bears,  so  far  as  I am  able  to  judge. 

I do  not  know  much  of  Sir  H.  Somerset,  but  from  what  I have  heard 
of  him  from  officers  who  have  been  at  the  Cape,  I do  not  think  he  would 
answer.  Brigadier  Sydney  Cotton  is  one  of  the  best  officers  I have  seen 
in  India.  He  is  a thorough  soldier,  loves  his  profession,  and  has  con- 
siderable administrative  talent.  Of  all  the  officers  I have  noted,  with 
one  exception,  S.  Cotton  is  perhaps  the  best.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  not  an  officer  in  whom  political  authority  could  be  invested  with 
advantage. 

The  man  whom  I would  name  for  the  command  of  such  an  expedition 
is  my  own  brother  Henry.  I can  assure  your  Lordship  that  I am  not,  in 
the  slightest  degree,  biassed  in  his  favour.  He  has  seen  a good  deal  of 
service,  having  been  in  the  first  Burmese  war,  in  the  second  Afghan 
war,  and  in  both  the  Sutlej  campaigns.  He  is  not  an  officer  of  much 
technical  knowledge,  except  in  his  own  branch  (the  Artillery),  and  he  is 
not  fond  of  details.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  great  natural  ability, 
immense  force  of  character,  is  very  popular  in  his  service,  has  large  pol- 
itical acumen,  and  much  administrative  ability.  I do  not  think  there  is 
a military  man  in  India  who  is  his  equal  on  these  points.  He  is  also 
in  possession  of  his  full  vigour,  both  in  mind  and  body  ; and  there  is 
not  a good  soldier  in  the  Punjab,  or,  perhaps  in  Upper  India,  of  the  Ben- 
gal army,  but  would  volunteer  to  serve  under  him.  With  him  as  the 
commander  and  S.  Cotton  as  the  second  in  command  the  arrangement 
would  be  complete.  If  anything  happened  to  my  brother,  by  that  time 
Cotton  would  be  at  home  in  those  points  in  which  he  is  now  defective. 
Cotton  is  master  of  all  the  technical  details  of  every  arm  of  the  service, 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE -STORM. 


455 


and  devotes  his  entire  energies  and  thoughts  to  the  welfare  of  his  sol- 
diers. But  he  is  not  a man  of  the  ability  and  breadth  of  view  which  my 
brother  possesses.  In  invading  such  a country  as  Persia,  it  will  not  be 
mere  fighting  which  is  to  be  provided  for,  but  dealing  with  Oriental 
tribes  and  chiefs.  And  the  result  of  all  this  would  be  negotiations  re- 
quiring tact  and  knowledge  of  character. 

Pray,  my  Lord,  do  not  think  there  is  anything  like  a job  in  what  I have 
now  written.  If  I know  myself,  I would  revolt  against  such  conduct. 
My  brother  and  I have,  1 believe,  a real  and  strong  affection  for  each 
other  ; but  in  public  life  we  have  often  disagreed,  and  to  some  extent, 
for  a time,  were  estranged  from  each  other.  In  all  I have  now  said  I 
have  been  actuated  solely  by  a desire  for  the  public  interests,  and  your 
Lordship  will  have  full  opportunity  of  comparing  my  statements  with 
those  of  officers  about  you. 

Few  men  would  have  had  the  moral  courage,  the  single- 
heartedness,  to  write  this.  It  is  the  exact  picture  of  the  man. 
He  hated  jobs  with  a perfect  hatred.  But  he  would  have  hated 
still  more  the  moral  cowardice  which  would  have  refrained 
from  doing  what  was  right,  because,  peradventure,  it  might  be 
thought  to  be  a job.  Writing  to  Lord  Canning  on  another  oc- 
casion, as  to  the  method  by  which  the  irregularities  which  had 
crept  into  the  Public  Works  Department  in  the  Punjab  might 
be  best  avoided  in  Oude,  he  describes  himself  thus  : 

I have  written  to  your  Lordship  openly  and  freely,  as  I conceive  you 
would  wish  me  to  have  done.  If  not  too  great  a liberty,  may  I ask  that 
such  communications  may  be  reserved  for  yourself  alone  ? This  being 
the  case,  I could  always  write  with  much  less  reserve  on  men  and  things 
than  would  otherwise  be  necessary.  Your  Lordship  may,  however,  de- 
pend that  I will  write  nothing  but  the  truth.  My  feelings  are  so  strongly 
enlisted  in  my  public  duties,  that  I may  almost  say  that  I have  no  friends 
independent  of  such  considerations.  My  best  friends  are  the  officers  of 
whom  I think  best  in  my  public  relations. 

There  were  many  exceptions,  doubtless,  to  this  last  rather 
sweeping  statement,  but  they  were  exceptions  which  proved  the 
rule. 

And  in  general  harmony  with  his  description  of  himself  are 
some  reminiscences  contributed  by  Sir  George  Campbell,  who, 
though  he  had  not  been  educated  under  John  Lawrence,  was 
at  this  time,  on  John  Lawrence’s  own  invitation,  serving  under 
him  as  Commissioner  of  the  Cis-Sutlej  states.  ‘ I have  no 
doubt,’  says  John  Lawrence  in  a letter  which  lies  before  me, 

1 that  Campbell  has  “ grit  ” in  him,  and  I shall  be  glad  to  rec- 


. 456  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1856-57 

ommend  him  for  the  Punjab  if  he  likes;’  and  it  is  thus  that 
Sir  George  Campbell  writes  of  his  former  chief  : — 

It  was  while  I was  working  under  John  Lawrence,  in  the  Cis-Sutlej  states, 
that  I came  well  to  know  and  appreciate  the  man  and  his  administration. 
In  truth,  I believe  that  at  that  time  he  was  about  in  his  prime  in  every  way. 

Though  I am  not  of  an  enthusiastic  temperament,  and  had  not  been  a 
personal  follower  of  the  Chief  Commissioner,  I did,  in  this  period,  come 
to  have  a very  great  admiration  for  him.  His  simple-minded  devotion 
to  the  public  service,  the  immense  energy  and  ability  which  he  threw 
into  his  work,  and  the  way  in  which  he  infused  his  own  energy  and  de- 
votion into  others,  impressed  me  very  greatly,  as  did  also  his  great  clear- 
ness of  head  and  strong  common  sense.  The  amount  of  work  that  he  got 
through  was  marvellous.  He  did  not  only  his  own,  but  a good  deal  of 
other  people’s  work,  especially  that  of  his  dear  friend  Donald  Macleod, 
the  most  amiable  and,  I believe,  sensible  of  men,  but  whose  office  was 
always  hopelessly  in  arrears.  Sir  John  was  a very  strict  disciplinarian. 
As  he  did  not  spare  himself,  so  he  did  not  spare  others.  He  had  a very 
active  horror  of  idleness,  and  also  of  all  jobs  of  every  description.  No 
doubt  he  carried  this  to  such  a point  that  he  was  considered,  in  some 
degree,  to  be  a hard  man.  For  my  part  I understood  and  appreciated 
the  lines  on  which  he  acted.  Nevertheless,  it  somewhat  jarred  upon 
one.  At  the  time  when  I returned  from  furlough  he  was  good  enough 
to  wish  to  have  my  services,  but,  as  I thought,  offered  me  something 
lower  than  I might  fairly  claim.  Only  when  he  found  that  I had  better 
offers  for  the  North-West  Provinces  he  raised  his  offer.  Still  I felt  that 
he  was  making  the  best  bargain  he  could  in  the  public  interests,  just  as 
if  he  had  been  buying  a horse  ! So,  again,  having  a great  dislike  to  the 
too  great  use  or  abuse  of  the  hills,  he  was,  on  one  occasion,  somewhat 
severe  on  me  when  I was  about  to  make  a tour  in  the  hill  portion  of  my 
jurisdiction.  But  when  I showed  him,  as  I did,  that,  in  reality,  I 
had  been  down  in  the  plains  when  he  supposed  otherwise,  he  accepted  a 
strong  reclamation  of  mine  in  very  good  part,  and  I felt  that  he  was  only 
careful  of  the  public  interests. 

In  truth,  however,  though  I,  who  had  no  personal  claims  on  him,  and 
understood  his  principle  of  action,  could  well  bear  with  these  things,  I 
think  that,  both  at  this  time  and  in  his  subsequent  career,  there  were  a 
good  many,  and  especially  some  of  those  nearest  to  him,  and  who  had  most 
claims  on  him,  who  could  not  take  the  same  view,  and  thought  that  he 
had  not  sufficient  consideration  for  their  interests.  The  fact  is  that,  in 
order  to  fulfil  thoroughly  the  part  of  a leader  of  men,  it  is  necessary,  to  a 
certain  extent,  to  practice  what,  in  plain  Saxon,  I should  call  ‘jobbing 
for  one’s  friends,’  or  what  in  the  Latinised  language  in  which  we  disguise 
these  things,  most  of  us  would  call  ‘ generous  consideration  for  services.’ 
This  Lord  Lawrence  never  did.  No  doubt  he  was  substantially  right. 
But  the  result  was  to  deprive  him,  to  some  extent,  of  that  enthusiastic  per- 
sonal following  which  tends  so  much  to  increase  the  fame  of  a great  man. 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


457 


Of  the  substantial  accuracy  of  what  has  here  been  so  well  put 
by  Sir  George  Campbell,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  is  abun- 
dantly supported  by  the  correspondence  before  me.  But  the 
inferences  which  might  possibly  be  drawn  from  it  would  seem 
to  me,  as  probably  Sir  George  Campbell  would  be  the  first  to 
admit,  to  require  some  comment  and  some  modification.  And 
first  I would  remark  that  the  ‘ man  who  will  never  job  for  his 
friends,’  who  never  fails  to  tell  them  of  their  shortcomings, 
however  ready  he  may  be  to  bear  with  them  ; who  is  chary  of 
his  praise  to  their  face,  however  lavish  he  may  be  of  it  behind 
their  backs  ; who  thinks  nothing  done  while  aught  remains  un- 
done ; who  regards  the  performance  of  duty  by  himself  and  by 
others  as  a matter  of  course,  rather  than  as  requiring  ‘gener- 
ous recognition,’  and  yet  manages  to  retain  the  loyal  service  and, 
in  most  cases,  the  devoted  attachment  of  men  so  different  from 
himself  and  from  one  another  as  Montgomery,  Edmondstone, 
Edwardes,  Macleod,  Temple,  Thornton,  Norman,  Becher,  Pol- 
lock, Cust,  the  Chamberlains,  the  Lumsdens,  the  Brandreths, 
the  MacNabbs,  and  a host  of  others, — not  to  speak  of  those 
whom  he  gathered  round  him  as  Governor-General,  or  in  his 
private  life,  men  like  Eastwick,  Muir,  Aitchison,  Seton-Karr, 
the  Stracheys, — is,  inherently,  a greater  man,  is  more  powerful, 
more  self-sufficing,  more  of  a born  ruler,  more  of  a ‘king  of 
men,’  than  the  man  who  is  gifted  with  what  are  called  the  more 
‘popular’  qualities,  and  by  them  gathers  friends  around  him, 
who  lend  him  a support  which  is  not  so  intrinsically  his  own. 
Such  a man  was  John  Lawrence. 

Not  that  he  despised  popularity.  He  neither  shunned  nor 
courted  it.  ‘No  man,’  he  says  to  his  friend  Ricketts,  ‘perhaps 
cares  less  for  mere  popularity  than  I do.  But  unpopularity  and 
discontent  are  elements  of  weakness,  and  there  is  no  man  who 
will  not  prefer  avoiding  them  if  he  can  do  so  with  honour.’  ‘ If 
we  act,’  he  says  on  another  occasion,  ‘ only  to  gain  an  ephemer- 
al popularity,  we  shall  never  do  much  good.  In  India,  of  all 
places,  it  is  hopeless  to  do  one’s  duty  and  please  the  multitude.’ 
Wanting  as  he  was  in  the  more  popular  qualities,  he,  no  doubt, 
did  manage  to  offend,  at  one  time  or  another,  all  but  the  most 
discerning  of  his  friends  and  subordinates.  But  they  all,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  gravitated  back  to  him  ; and  all,  without 
any  exception  at  all,  loyally  recognised  him  as  their  chief  and 
leader.  His  intimate  friends  were  always  few  in  number.  ‘ I 
don’t  care  much  for  many  fellows,’  he  said  to  one  of  the  chosen 


453 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


few,  when  late  in  his  life  he  was  going  back  to  India,  ‘but  you 
are  one  of  them.’  These  few,  and  many  others  also,  well  knew 
that  his  roughnesses  were  but  surface  roughnesses.  * He  had 
nothing  of  the  bear  but  his  coat,’  said  one  of  them  to  me.  ‘ His 
roughnesses,’  said  another,  ‘were  those  of  a big  Newfoundland 
— no,  let  us  say,  of  a St.  Bernard  dog.’ 

Of  his  appetite  for  work  it  is  difficult  to  speak  too  strongly. 
He  was  insatiable  of  it.  He  was  possessed  by  what  his  subor- 
dinates, with  less  physical  powers  or  less  force  of  will,  might 
well  have  described  as  a demon  of  work.  But  it  was  now  at 
last  beginning  to  tell  seriously  upon  him.  His  letters,  during 
this  year,  often  speak  of  his  ill-health.  His  medical  advisers 
insisted  on  his  going  to  Murri  a month  earlier  than  usual,  and 
even  then  he  gained  little.  ‘ I have  been  very  sick,’  he  writes 
to  one  friend,  ‘ and  unable  to  do  much  beyond  getting  through 
my  work,  and  that  not  without  an  effort.  My  liver  is  out  of 
order.’  And  to  another,  ‘ I am  nearly  distracted  with  work, 
and  not  well.  I have  from  ten  to  eleven  hours  of  work 
daily,  in  which  time  I work  at  railroad  pace.  Had  I not  seven 
children  I would  cut  the  concern.  Well  did  the  wise  man  say, 
“All  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.”’  Work  enough  this, 
one  would  say,  for  an  invalid!  Yet  he  sometimes  felt  sorely 
dissatisfied  with  himself.  ‘ Men  call  me  John  the  rigorous  ; of 
a surety,  I am  John  the  weak.  When  I look  back  on  the  last 
two  years,  and  see  how  little  has  been  done  to  bring  the  execu- 
tive department’  (that  is,  the  public  works)  ‘ into  order,  I could 
hide  my  head  for  shame.  My  only  real  consolation  is  that  I 
could  not  perhaps  have  effected  more.’  The  cry  that  the  Pun- 
jabis generally  were  overworked  irritated  him  greatly.  ‘ The 
present  cry,’  he  writes  to  Montgomery,  ‘ of  overwork  is  not 
only  absurd,  but  suicidal.  If  admitted,  it  will  end  in  more 
officers  and  less  pay.  I should  like  to  propose  to  some  of  our 
overworked  men  to  give  up  their  work  and  pay  to  a deputy  ; 
yet  it  is  to  this  that  the  present  howling  will  bring  us.’  ‘ It  is 
the  fashion,’  he  writes  on  another  occasion,  when  he  had  been 
attacked  for  getting  rid  of  a grossly  incompetent  officer,  ‘ with 
the  Press,  to  make  out  that  I am  hard  and  severe  to  those  who 
serve  under  me.  But  with  from  four  to  five  hundred  officers, 
civil,  military,  and  uncovenanted,  under  me,  it  is  not  possible 
that  I can  do  my  duty  and  give  no  offence.  But  I would  chal- 
lenge any  man  to  come  forward  and  produce  any  official  corres- 
pondence in  which  I have  either  dealt  harshly,  or  have  even  used 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


459 


expressions  which  the  circumstances  of  the  case  have  not  fully 
warranted.  You  do  not  surely  suppose  that  a country  like  this 
is  to  be  kept  in  order  by  ‘rose-water’  expressions  or  by  ‘but- 
termilk’ management.  Ask  the  assistants  who  served  under 
me  at  Delhi  what  was  my  treatment  of  them.’  He  might  well 
appeal,  just  at  that  time,  to  his  experience  at  Delhi  ; for  Arthur 
Roberts,  who  had  been  ‘joint  magistrate  and  collector’  with 
him  there,  and  was  now  judge  in  the  Saugur  and  Nerbudda 
territory,  had  written  to  him,  very  recently,  in  the  warmest 
terms,  expressing  a hope  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  serve 
under  him  in  the  Punjab,  and  John  Lawrence  had  just  for- 
warded his  request  to  Lord  Canning  and  recommended  him  for 
the  post. 

Of  course,  in  his  enfeebled  condition  of  health,  the  worries 
of  his  position  could  not  but  tell  more  and  more  on  him.  ‘ I 
am  distressed,’  he  writes  on  October  15,  1856,  ‘with  work  and 
long  reports,  and  one  botheration  and  another.’  Among  the 
worst  of  these  ‘ botherations  ’ was  once  more  the  wayward  and 
restless  spirit  of  Nicholson,  who  seemed  quite  unable,  in  spite 
of  all  his  chief’s  consideration  for  him,  to  play  second  fiddle  to 
him. 

Not  that  there  was  not  a tender  side  to  John  Nicholson.  It 
was  pleasant  to  see  him  with  children  at  any  time  ; and  in  the 
hands  of  Henry  Lawrence  or  Herbert  Edwardes  he  was  himself 
like  a little  child.  They  could  do  anything  with  him.  But  he 
could  brook  no  official  control.  Obstinate,  haughty,  and  im- 
perious, no  regulations  could  bind  him  ; they  were  made  only 
to  be  broken.  ‘The  autocrat  of  all  the  Russias,’  he  was  called 
not  inaptly  by  his  brother  officers  ; and  the  natives,  not  less 
naturally,  as  I shall  show  hereafter,  were  disposed  to  worship 
him  as  a god.  On  the  frontier  he  was  free,  even  under  John 
Lawrence’s  rule,  to  act  pretty  much  as  he  liked.  Many  of  his 
deeds,  had  they  been  done  in  other  parts  of  India,  would  have 
caused  a general  rising,  or  his  dismissal  from  the  service — not 
without  reason.  He  was  one  day,  as  I have  been  told  by 
Colonel  Urmstone,  who  was  then  Assistant  Commissioner  at 
Peshawur,  riding  through  a village,  attended  by  a single  order- 
ly, and  he  observed  in  passing  a mosque  that  the  Moulla, 
instead  of  salaaming  to  him,  looked  at  him  with  a gesture  of 
contempt  or  hatred.  When  he  got  home  he  sent  his  orderly  to 
fetch  the  Moulla,  and  then  and  there  shaved  off  his  beard  ! 
He  was  always  prompt  in  action.  One  day  he  was  standing  at 


460 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


his  garden  gate  in  Bunnoo  with  a couple  of  Englishmen  and 
a few  native  attendants,  when  a man  with  a sword  walked  up 
to  him  and,  peering  into  his  face,  asked  which  of  them  was 
Nikkul  Seyn.  Nicholson  divined  his  object,  and  snatching  a 
musket  from  a sentry  who  was  passing  by,  brought  it  to  bear 
on  the  man,  and  told  him  he  would  shoot  him  dead  if  he  did 
not  drop  his  sword.  The  man  rushed  in  at  him,  sword  in  hand, 
and  Nicholson  was  as  good  as  his  word.  The  ball  passed  into 
his  heart  through  a copy  of  the  Koran,  which  was  turned  down 
— so  it  was  said — at  a page  promising  Paradise  to  those  who 
fell  in  the  attempt  to  slay  unbelievers  ! Nicholson’s  official 
report  to  the  Chief  Commissioner  was  as  prompt  and  curt  as 
was  his  act.  It  was  to  the  following  effect : — 

Sir, — I have  the  honour  to  report  that  a man  came  into  my  compound 
to-day,  intending  to  kill  me,  and  that  I shot  him  dead. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

John  Nicholson. 

At  one  time,  in  a fit  of  discontent,  Nicholson  set  his  heart 
on  going  to  the  Crimea,  but  his  chief  put  the  objections 
forcibly  as  well  as  humorously  before  him  : ‘ I hope  that  Lord 
Hardinge  will  not  employ  you  in  the  Crimea.  You  are  much 
more  viseful  with  us.  As  for  your  usefulness  being  diminished, 
this  is  all  imagination.  I hope  to  see  Ross’  [the  kindly  but 
somewhat  feeble  Commissioner  of  Leia],  ‘ made  a Bishop  or  a 
Commander-in-Chief  in  the  Crimea,  and  so  his  post  will  fall 
naturally  to  you.  He  cannot  intend  to  remain  here  always.  I 
look  on  the  way  things  are  managed  in  the  Crimea  as  perfectly 
distressing  ; and  setting  aside  my  desire  to  retain  your  services, 
I should  be  sorry,  on  your  own  account,  to  see  you  in  the 
Crimea.  The  report  here  is  that  Lord  Hardinge  will  resign 
and  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  be  made  Commander-in-Chief  in 
England.’ 

The  Crimean  danger  had  thus  passed  over,  but  another 
supervened.  A request  from  Sir  John  Lawrence,  couched  in 
very  courteous  terms,  that  he  would  go  down  and  co-operate 
with  Chamberlain  against  his  old  foes  the  Musaod  Wuzeris, 
brought  on  another  storm  ; and  Nicholson,  equally  angry  with 
his  chief  and  with  Chamberlain,  announced  his  intention  of 
leaving  the  Punjab  altogether.  ‘ I can  never  help  him  to  leave 
the  Punjab,’  said  Lawrence  sadly  to  Edwardes,  ‘but  I will 
never  prevent  his  doing  so.’  But  more  violent  letters  from 


1856-57  THE  brewing  of  the  STORM.  461 

Nicholson  made  him  change  his  mind,  and,  at  last,  he  consented 
to  write  to  Lord  Canning  to  transfer  his  impetuous  lieutenant 
to  Blnirtpore,  where  he  would  be  under  his  brother  Henry. 
But  Providence  ruled  otherwise,  and  after  a hot  season  spent 
by  John  Lawrence’s  leave  in  the  cool  climate  of  Cashmere,  and 
a wistful  glance  towards  Persia  and  the  war  which  was  going 
on  there,  Nicholson  settled  down  by  his  own  wish  as  Deputy 
Commissioner  at  Peshawur,  and  happily  for  India  as  well  as 
for  the  Punjab,  it  was  at  Peshawur  that  he  was  still  to  be 
found  when  the  Mutiny  broke  out.  Well  might  John  Law- 
rence say,  in  a moment  of  desperation,  worn  out  by  work 
and  worry,  some  at  least  of  which  Nicholson  might  have  saved 
him  : ‘ My  work  here  is  almost  too  much  for  me.  Night  and 
day  I am  hard  at  the  mill.  No  old  bullock  in  a drought  is  harder 
worked  at  a well  irrigating  the  fields  than  I am.  A single  row, 
a personal  altercation,  involves  me  in  no  end  of  discussion,  and 

stops  all  public  business.  If  you  send back  to  the  Punjab, 

he  will  be  the  natural  rallying-point  for  all  the  malcontents  of 
the  two  services.’ 

The  blind  forces  of  nature  were  hardly  less  hostile,  during 
this  year,  to  Sir  John  Lawrence’s  peace  of  mind  than  those  of 
man.  There  were  terrible  outbreaks  of  cholera  in  various  parts 
of  the  Punjab,  especially  at  Lahore  and  Ferozepore.  There 
was  fever  everywhere,  and  everywhere  also  floods  and  inun- 
dations, with  terrible  destruction  of  property.  A great  portion 
of  Leia  was  damaged,  and  Dera  Ghazi  Khan  was  half  washed 
away.  Add  to  this  that  the  Court  of  Directors,  little  knowing 
what  had  gone  on  behind  the  scenes,  and  how  strenuously  John 
Lawrence  had  striven  to  prevent  it,  even  to  the  point  of  a rup- 
ture with  a man  he  esteemed  as  he  did  Napier,  censured  him 
severely  for  having  allowed  the  Civil  Engineers  to  go  so  fast. 
And,  worst  perhaps  of  all,  now  that  his  health  was  at  the 
weakest,  and  his  work  at  the  heaviest,  his  Secretary,  Temple, 
who  had  an  avidity  for  work  almost  equal  to  that  of  his  chief, 
went  home  on  furlough,  leaving  no  one  in  the  Punjab  who 
could  adequately  take  his  place.  ‘Temple  is  a host  in  him- 
self,’ John  Lawrence  had  written  to  Edwardes  shortly  before 
the  separation  came,  ‘ and  does  an  infinity  of  work  whether 
with  me  or  not.’  Nor  was  he  in  this  instance  sparing  of  his 
acknowledgments  to  Temple  himself.  * I have  the  list  of 
reports,’  he  writes  in  his  farewell  letter  to  him,  September  10, 
1856,  ‘ which  you  have  sent  off  in  the  last  six  months.  Their 


462 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


name  is  Legion.  It  is  only  wonderful  how  much  you  have  got 
through.  ...  I must  now  wish  you  good-bye.  May  all  good 
fortune  attend  you.  If  it  is  good  for  you,  I hope  you  may 
come  back.  But,  in  any  case,  I must  say  that  you  have  proved 
yourself  even  a more  able  secretary  than  I had  anticipated,  and 
have  afforded  me  great  aid  and  every  satisfaction.  Let  me  hear 
from  you  in  Calcutta,  and  after  you  get  home.’ 

But  whatever  his  difficulties  and  disappointments,  and  what- 
ever the  expressions  of  vexation  to  which  he  gave  vent  on  oc- 
casion, in  writing  to  his  intimate  friends,  it  must  not  be  imag- 
ined that  he  ever  lost  heart,  ever  relaxed  in  his  efforts,  or  ever 
despaired  of  the  future  of  his  province.  Sometimes,  on  the  very 
day  on  which  he  had  written  despondingly  to  one  friend,  he 
would  write  in  a very  different  strain  to  another.  For  example, 
to  his  friend  Courtenay  he  says  : — ‘ Affairs  are  going  on  pretty 
much  in  the  old  way — ten  hours  daily  at  the  desk,  and  a sober 
walk  on  the  Mall  in  the  evening.  The  Punjab  continues  to  pros- 
per, and,  please  God,  shall  continue  to  prosper  so  long  as  I am  at 
the  helm.  It  shrill  not,  if  I can  help  it,  get  into  disorder.'  And 
to  Lord  Dalhousie  : — ‘ Everything  seems  to  prosper  with  us. 
The  Border  is  quiet,  and  improvements  are  going  on  steadily 
on  all  sides.  Temple  and  I have,  between  us,  prepared  a third 
Punjab  report.  It  has  been  already  despatched,  and  will  no 
doubt,  in  due  time,  see  the  light.  I hope  your  Lordship  will 
procure  a copy  : the  India  House  will  have  plenty  of  them.’ 
And  to  Lord  Canning  : — * I am  much  obliged  to  your  Lordship 
for  your  kind  expressions  regarding  the  administration  of  the 
Punjab.  So  long  as  I remain  here,  I hope  that  its  management 
may  never  deteriorate,  and,  so  far  as  it  may  be  in  my  power,  it 
never  shall.  But  its  progress  must  always  mainly  depend  on 
the  officers  who  serve  in  it.  Good  laws  and  good  rules  are  soon 
inoperative  without  able,  experienced,  zealous  men  to  carry 
them  out.’ 

But  I must  return  once  more  to  the  war  with  Persia,  and  the 
proposed  alliance  with  Afghanistan. 

After  the  treaty  of  1855,  Dost  Mohammed  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  Candahar,  and  Futteli  Khan  Khuttuck,  who  had  been 
sent  thither  by  us  on  a special  mission  connected  with  the  rati- 
fication of  the  treaty,  had  brought  back  a vigorous  description 
of  the  Afghan  ruler,  and  of  the  difficulties  by  which  he  was 
surrounded.  Dost  Mohammed,  he  said,  was  nearly  seventy 
years  of  age,  had  a perfectly  white  beard  which  he  dyed  black, 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


463 


looked  in  ill-health,  seldom  went  out,  and  when  he  did,  rode  on 
an  elephant,  ‘a  very  bad  sign  in  an  Afghan  well  known  for  his 
horsemanship  ! ’ Everybody  was  looking  out  for  his  death,  es- 
pecially his  numerous  sons,  who  were  only  waiting  till  his  life 
was  over,  to  fight  it  out  over  his  dead  body.  There  were  end- 
less feuds  among  them,  but,  out  of  respect  to  their  father,  they 
put  off  cutting  each  others’  throats.  Old  as  he  was,  Dost  Mo- 
hammed was  anxious  to  march  in  person  against  Herat.  But 
he  had  no  means.  What  he  wanted  from  us  was  not  men,  of 
which  he  had  plenty,  but  money,  of  which  he  had  none  at  all. 
His  army  was  starving,  and  was  therefore  driven  to  plunder  the 
citizens  and  farmers.  ‘Candahar,’  said  Futteh  Khan,  ‘is  like  a 
field  of  ripe  bajrah  (millet),  and  the  citizens  on  the  roofs  of  the 
houses,  like  bird-scarers  in  their  tnachans  (platforms),  are  crying 
Ha!  ha!  to  scare  away  the  flock  of  plunderefs.  Meanwhile,  the 
Ameer  himself  is  never  abused  by  any  one.  He  conciliates 
them  all  with  soft  words,  “ My  son,”  or  “ My  brother,”  or  “ My 
child,”  which  goes  further  than  a rupee.’  He  had  come  to  Can- 
dahar, he  wrote  to  a friend,  that  he  might  visit  his  father’s  grave, 
which  was  situated  on  a bare  hillock  eight  miles  distant,  in  the 
hope  that  he  might,  at  last,  lay  his  own  beside  his  father’s  bones. 
Such  were  the  condition  and  such  the  apparent  prospects  of 
the  man  who  was,  nevertheless,  said  to  be  eager  to  march  at 
the  head  of  his  army  to  Herat,  and  whom  we  were  to  subsidise 
with  arms  and  money.  Well  might  John  Lawrence  question 
whether  both  would  not  be  thrown  away  ! 

But  there  was  life  in  the  old  Dost  yet.  After  appointing 
Gholam  Hyder  Khan — whose  life,  two  years  before,  had  seemed 
to  John  Lawrence  not  to  be  worth  six  months’  purchase — Gov- 
ernor of  the  newly  annexed  province  of  Candahar,  he  left  the 
city  on  September  14,  and  led  his  starving  army  back  to  Cabul, 
and  from  there  sent  to  Edwardes  to  propose  a meeting  with  the 
British  authorities.  Edwardes,  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  his  antecedents,  was  in  favour  of  the  interview,  John  Law- 
rence against  it. 

It  appears  to  me  we  shall  get  nothing  out  of  the  Ameer,  except  by 
paying  through  the  nose  for  it ; and  this  being  the  case,  I would  not 
bring  on  an  interview.  Should  his  Highness  come  down  to  meet  us  and 
not  gain  his  object,  he  would  assuredly  be  aggrieved.  Even  if  we  give 
him  twenty  or  thirty  lacs  of  rupees,  we  can  feel  no  assurance  whatever, 
we  have  no  pledge  that  he  will  take  an  active  part  in  the  Herat  affair. 
As  folks  say  of  the  Russians,  a material  guarantee  is  necessary.  . . . 


464 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


Just  fancy  Colonel  Jacob  writing  coolly  to  Government  to  place  all  Af- 
ghan relations  under  him  ! So  far  as  I personally  am  concerned,  it  would 
cause  me  no  regret. 

Lord  Canning  was  in  favour  of  the  interview,  but  expressed 
his  emphatic  agreement  with  Sir  John  Lawrence’s  view  that 
the  best  chance  for  getting  on  well  with  the  Afghans  was  to 
have  as  few  points  of  contact  with  them  as  possible  ; and  Sir 
John  not  caring  to  gain  credit  by  a thing  which  he  did  not 
wholly  approve,  generously  told  Edwardes  that  unless  the 
Ameer  made  a point  of  his  coming,  he  would  rather  stay  away 
and  leave  the  matter  in  his  hands.  But  Edwardes  was  as  gen- 
erous as  his  chief.  ‘ I left  it  to  Edwardes,’  John  Lawrence 
writes  to  Lord  Canning,  ‘ to  decide  whether  I should  be  present 
or  not,  and  he,  very  magnanimously,  has  replied  that  I had  bet- 
ter be  there.’  Accordingly,  on  November  16,  he  set  out  for 
Rawul  Pindi,  on  a ‘ wild  goose  chase,’  as  he  calls  it  to  his  friend 
Montgomery.  His  intention  was  to  go  by  Koshalgurh  on  the 
Indus  to  Kohat,  and  there  to  wait  till  he  heard  whether  the 
Ameer  proposed  to  meet  him  in  the  Kurrum  valley,  a hundred 
miles  further  on,  or  at  Peshawur. 

While  he  was  waiting  here,  the  long-expected  but  still  some- 
what startling  news  came  that  Herat  had  been  captured  by  the 
Persians,  and,  in  the  first  flush  of  anxiety,  Edwardes  wrote  a 
memorandum,  which  he  begged  John  Lawrence  to  forward  to 
Government,  advocating  the  immediate  despatch  of  British 
troops  to  Cabul  and  Candahar.  In  his  after  life  or  in  his 
soberer  moments  Edwardes  would  have  looked  on  such  a pro- 
posal with  dismay.  But  his  letter  did  good  work  now  by  call- 
ing forth  a protest  from  his  chief,  in  which  he  clearly  set  forth 
that  policy  towards  Afghanistan,  to  which,  founded  as  it  was 
on  an  almost  unique  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  he  ever 
afterwards  clung,  through  good  and  evil  report,  with  charac- 
teristic tenacity. 

To  Edwardes  John  Lawrence  wrote,  on  the  day  on  which  his 
proposal  reached  him,  November  25  : — 

I do  not  think  that  Government  will  send  a force  into  Afghanistan. 
For  my  part,  1 believe  it  would  be  a false  move.  If  Russia  is  not  at  the 
bottom  of  this  attack  at  Herat,  it  will  produce  those  evils  which  you 
fear.  But  if  she  is  the  source  of  the  affair — and  I fully  believe  that  she  is 
— I consider  that  the  battle  for  India  is  to  be  fought  on  this  side  the  Soli- 
man  range,  and  not  on  that.  The  money  which  we  must  spend  in  de- 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


465 


fending  Afghanistan  in  the  mode  proposed  in  your  memo,  would  make 
us  irresistible  in  India.  It  appears  madness  to  send  a light  force  to 
Candahar,  without  heavy  guns,  and  without  supports.  If  Persia  ad- 
vances on  Candahar,  such  a Brigade  under  the  feeble  defences  of  Canda- 
har would  assuredly  be  compromised.  I shall  never  forget  a remark  of 
Lord  Hardinge’s  to  the  effect  that  we  might  rest  assured  that  if  ever  we 
took  the  field  against  an  enemy,  we  must  do  it  as  principals  and  not  as 
auxiliaries,  for  the  whole  brunt  of  the  war  would  fall  on  us.  If  we  send 
Chamberlain  and  4,000  men  to  Candahar  to-day,  it  will  end  in  our  hav- 
ing to  send  20,000  men  under  feeble  and  incapable  generals  in  the  end. 
If  we  carry  on  war  in  Afghanistan  we  shall  ruin  our  finances,  and,  in  the 
event  of  a reverse,  the  very  Afghans  will  sell  us  to  our  enemies.  They 
will  make  friends  of  them  at  our  expense.  On  the  other  hand,  should  a 
Russo- Persian  army  press  on  and  meet  us  at  the  mouth  of  the  Bolan  or 
Khyber  and  experience  a reverse,  then  the  Afghans,  who  have  united 
with  them,  will  play  the  same  game  against  them. 

On  the  following  day  he  wrote  a much  more  elaborate  expo- 
sition of  his  policy  to  Lord  Canning,  which  I quote  nearly  in 
full.  Its  importance,  in  view  of  recent  events  and  very  possibly 
of  recurring  contingencies  in  Afghanistan,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  over-estimate. 

Kohat : November  26,  1856. 

My  Lord, — I beg  to  enclose  a memo,  which  I received  yesterday  from 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Edwardes  regarding  the  measures  which  he  would 
recommend  consequent  on  the  fall  of  Herat.  In  these  views  I need 
hardly  say  that  I cannot  concur.  I have  thought  over  this  question  to  the 
best  of  my  ability  frequently  and  anxiously.  I have  read  up  all  the  in- 
formation which  I could  procure,  and  have  discussed  the  subject  with 
some  of  the  best  officers  in  the  army  at  different  times  ; and  the  conclu- 
sion which  has  been  invariably  forced  on  my  judgment  is,  that  it  would 
be  a fatal  error  for  us  to  interfere  actively  in  Central  Asia.  I annex  an 
extract  from  a hurried  letter  I w'rote  to  Edwardes  yesterday.  It  contains 
an  outline  of  the  objections  which  occur  to  me  against  his  plans. 

As  regards  Herat,  I believe  that  it  is  now  a place  of  considerable 
strength.  Major  Saunders  of  the  Bengal  Engineers,  who  was  slain  at 
Maharajpore,  if  I mistake  not,  visited  the  place  ; and  under  his  direc- 
tions, and  those  of  the  late  Major  D’Arcy  Todd,  I believe  large  sums 
were  expended  on  the  fortifications.  But,  on  this  subject,  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  James  Abbott,  now  at  Ishapore,  could  give  your  Lordship  full 
information.  I cannot  perceive  any  reason  why  Russia  could  not  throw 
into  the  place  any  number  of  Engineers  and  Artillerymen  she  might 
think  proper,  long  before  our  army  could  sit  down  in  front  of  it.  And 
these  officers,  with  the  assistance  which  Persia  could  supply  in  labour, 
would  render  it  impregnable  against  all  the  means  which  we  could  bring 
from  India  against  it.  It  is  my  conviction  that  any  such  attempt  by  us 
Vol.  I. — 30 


466  LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1856-57 

would  not  only  entail  the  expenditure  of  millions,  but  would,  assuredly, 
end  in  disaster. 

I admit  that  the  interests  of  the  Afghans  are,  at  present,  identical 
with  ours,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  such  will  always  be  the  case.  If 
we  prove  successful  in  the  contest,  no  doubt  the  Afghans  will  remain 
faithful.  But  in  the  event  of  a reverse,  it  might  prove  their  true  game  to 
take  the  other  side.  If  we  send  an  army  to  Afghanistan,  it  must  go 
prepared  for  all  contingencies,  to  meet  all  comers,  to  depend  solely  on 
its  own  means  and  its  own  resources,  and,  at  Herat,  it  would  be  many 
hundred  miles  from  our  frontier,  and  from  all  effective  support. 

I can,  even  now,  recall  to  mind  my  brother  Colonel  George  Law- 
rence’s vivid  description  of  the  march  through  the  Bolan  Pass  and  the 
entry  into  Candahar.  He  assured  me  that  out  of  the  whole  force  there 
were  not  500  horses  able  to  carry  their  riders,  and  that  these  horse- 
men could  not  have  got  their  horses  into  a canter  for  half  a mile  ! The 
Artillery  horses  were  in  a still  worse  plight ; and  after  all,  what  was  the 
strength  of  this  force  ? Including  all  Shah  Soojah’s  troops,  it  did  not,  I 
believe,  exceed  12,000  men  ! 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  circumstances  of  those  days  and  of  the  present 
time  are  very  different.  Scinde  and  the  Punjab  are  ours.  We  should  go 
to  defend  the  Afghans,  not  to  wage  war  against  them.  Still,  we  must 
also  bear  in  mind  that  all  through  Scinde  and  the  Bolan,  and  from 
thence  to  Candahar,  and  so  on  to  Ghuzni,  not  a shot  was  fired  at  us.  No 
resistance  was  offered.  More  than  this  could  not  now  be  anticipated. 

Cabul  and  the  countries  between  India  and  Herat  seem  scarcely  cap- 
able of  feeding  a large  force.  I am  sure  it  could  not  be  done  without 
harassing  the  people,  and  making  them  more  or  less  hostile  to  us.  It  is 
difficult  in  parts  even  of  the  Punjab  to  feed  3,000  or  4,000  men  in  one 
place.  In  1850,  when  I accompanied  Lord  Dalhousie  from  Rawul  Pindi 
to  Kalabagh  on  the  Indus,  we  were  in  danger  of  starving,  because  it 
rained  for  three  or  four  days  ! We  had,  literally,  to  collect  food  and 
forage  from  a distance  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles  round. 

The  Afghans  are  fickle  and  fanatical  to  a proverb,  and  their  rplers 
have  but  a nominal  control  over  them.  Even  if  willing,  the  latter  could 
not  ensure  supplies,  and  the  visits  of  the  Commissariat  agents  and  con- 
tractors would  soon  prove  eminently  distasteful. 

I am  equally  averse  to  the  minor  or  less  dangerous  measure  of  de- 
spatching an  Irregular  force  to  garrison  Candahar.  If  the  Ameer  cannot 
fight  his  own  battles  on  his  own  ground,  it  seems  vain  for  us  to  attempt 
to  do  it.  The  Persians  may  succeed  in  occupying  Candahar  for  a time, 
but  the  possession  will  probably  entail  future  disaster.  The  Afghans,  if 
they  ever  can  be  induced  to  combine,  will  do  so  to  get  rid  of  such  an  in- 
vader. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Afghans,  despite  the  natural 
strength  of  their  country,  and  the  martial  character  of  the  population, 
are  really  weak,  owing  to  internecine  quarrels,  and  the  fickle  and  faith- 
less character  of  the  people.  It  was  for  these  reasons  that  I told  Lord 
Dalhousie  (I  quote  from  memory)  that  I believed  they  would  never  be 


1856-57  THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM.  467 

able  to  resist  a formidable  invader  moving  on  India,  who  had  arrived  at 
Herat. 

If  we  send  a force  to  Candahar,  it  will  eventually  necessitate  the  re- 
occupation of  the  country.  Afghanistan  will  then  become  the  battle-field 
for  India,  and  the  cost  of  maintaining  our  position  will  render  India 
bankrupt ; and  should  we  meet  with  reverses,  we  shall  have  to  retrace 
our  steps,  with  an  exhausted  treasury  and  a dispirited  army.  Whereas, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  we  leave  Afghanistan  alone,  and  concentrate  our 
means  on  this  side  of  the  Soliman  range,  we  should  meet  an  invader, 
worn  by  toil  and  travail,  with  a weak  Artillery  and  distant  from  his  re- 
sources, as  he  debouched  from  the  passes.  Under  such  circumstances 
defeat  should  be  certain,  and  defeat  would  be  annihilation. 

The  money  which  we  should  expend  in  besieging  Herat  and  in  fighting 
in  Afghanistan  would  double  our  European  force  in  India,  finish  our 
most  important  railroads,  and  cover  the  Punjab  rivers  with  steamers.  I 
believe  that  the  Cabul  war  from  first  to  last  did  not  consume  less  than 
twelve  millions  of  money  ; and  this  is  but  a trifle  compared  to  the  sacri- 
fices which  would  be  necessary  against  Russia  and  Persia  combined,  if 
we  met  them  in  Central  Asia. 

I might  also  add — what,  however,  in  so  stupendous  a question  is  a 
point  of  less  consideration — that  we  can  ill  spare  such  a force  (a  part  of 
the  Punjab  force)  as  that  which  it  is  proposed  to  send  to  Candahar.  It  is 
of  all  others  especially  adapted  for  the  duties  on  which  it  is  employed.  It 
contains  some  of  the  flower  of  our  Indian  soldiers  and  officers.  It  is  only 
in  the  course  of  seven  years’  labour  that  we  have  brought  it  into  its  pres- 
ent condition.  The  mountain  tribes  have  never  yet  been  thoroughly 
punished,  let  alone  subdued  ; and  the  force  which  Colonel  Edwardes  in- 
dicates as  available  to  take  their  place  can  ill  be  spared.  There  are  not, 
on  this  side  of  India,  even  rifles  with  which  to  supply  them  ; and  it  is 
most  inconvenient  and  embarrassing,  employing  the  Regular  native 
troops  on  civil  duties.  I do  not  forget  that  I have  informed  your  Lord- 
ship  that  I could  spare  2,000  of  the  Punjab  force  for  service  in  Persia. 
But  this  was  with  much  difficulty  ; and  if  nearly  double  that  number  be 
withdrawn,  we  must  permanently  confine  ourselves  to  a defensive  system 
on  the  frontier.  And  such  a system  has  proved  radically  weak  and  in- 
effective. 

I ride  through  the  Kohat  Pass  to-morrow,  and  expect  to  be  at  Pesha- 
wur  on  the  morning  of  the  29th. 

With  the  views  thus  forcibly  expressed  Lord  Canning  entirely 
concurred  ; and  John  Lawrence,  hearing  at  last  that  the  Dost 
proposed  to  meet  him  at  Jumrood,  and  not  in  the  Kurrum  val- 
ley, traversed  the  Kohat  Pass  and  reached  Peshawur  on  Novem- 
ber 29,  where  he  was  shortly  afterwards  joined  by  his  wife  from 
Rawul  Pindi.  The  Dost,  like  a true  Oriental,  was  slow  and 
stately  in  his  movements,  and  another  month  had  passed  before 


468 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1-856—57 


news  came  that  he  had  reached  the  further  end  of  the  Khyber. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab,  the  Commissioner  of 
Peshawur,  General  Sydney  Cotton,  who  was  in  command  of 
the  Peshawur  force,  and  Harry  Lumsden,  who  was  in  command 
of  the  Guides,  at  once  moved  forward  to  Jumrood,  accompanied 
by  some  3,000  troops  of  all  arms,  so  as  to  be  in  readiness  to  re- 
ceive the  Afghan  sovereign  with  becoming  honours,  as  soon  as 
he  should  set  foot  on  British  soil.  But  the  Ameer,  fearing  the 
treachery,  of  which,  as  an  Afghan,  he  was  always  capable,  begged 
that  Sir  John  Lawrence  would  first  meet  him  on  Afghan  terri- 
tory. Sir  John  consented,  and  early  on  New  Year’s  Day,  1857, 
two  of  Dost  Mohammed’s  sons,  accompanied  by  a band  of  wild- 
looking horsemen,  appeared  in  the  British  camp,  ready  to  escort 
him  into  the  royal  presence.  It  must  have  been  a journey  of 
no  ordinary  interest  to  the  English  visitors.  For  it  was  the  first 
glimpse  that  any  one  of  the  party — though  most  of  them  had 
lived  in  sight  of  its  entrance  for  so  many  years — had  ever  been 
able  to  catch  of  the  interior  of  that  forbidding  pass,  over  whose 
gloomy  portals  might  well  have  been  inscribed  the  words  of 
Dante, 

‘ All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here.’ 

It  was  indeed  an  instinct  of  self-preservation,  no  less  than  the 
stringent  orders  of  the  Government,  which  had  prohibited 
Englishmen,  however  curious  and  however  adventurous,  from 
entering  within  the  precincts  of  those  dreaded  Khyberees  who, 
half  starved  as  they  were,  and  living,  many' of  them,  like  foxes 
in  holes  in  the  ground,  had  never  yet  been  subdued  by  man, 
had  levied  black-mail  from  every  conqueror  who  passed  through 
their  fastnesses,  and  sallying  forth  by  night,  had,  in  the  last 
few  years,  murdered  so  many  British  subjects  and  harried  so 
many  native  flocks  and  herds  almost  under  the  eyes  of  the  gar- 
rison of  Peshawur.  It  must  have  been  with  feelings,  therefore, 
not  of  curiosity  or  of  interest  alone,  that  the  small  cavalcade 
entered  the  forbidden  precincts  and  made  its  way  for  some  miles 
up  the  pass,  every  crag  and  pinnacle  of  which  might  well  con- 
ceal an  Afghan  marksman. 

John  Lawrence,  knowing  well  the  risk  he  ran,  had  begged 
Sydney  Cotton — to  whose  account  I owe  some  of  the  details  of 
the  story — to  give  orders  to  his  troops  that  if  any  firing  was 
heard  within  the  pass  they  should  at  once  enter  it  and  rush  to 
the  rescue.  It  was  an  order  which,  as  it  turned  out,  might  have 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


469 


cost  the  lives  of  the  whole  party  ; for  when  they  reached  the 
royal  camp,  the  heavy  guns  which  were  drawn  up  in  front  of 
the  Ameer’s  tent  fired  a salute  in  their  honour,  the  salvo  of  Ar- 
tillery was  taken  up  by  a musketry  fire  from  the  Afghan  troops 
who  lined  the  lower  hills,  and  this  again  by  the  mountaineers 
who  crowned  the  tops  for  miles  along  the  pass,  till  the  whole 
Khyber  rang  and  rang  again  with  the  echoes  of  what  might  well 
have  been  mistaken  for  a general  engagement.  Had  the  officer 
left  behind  in  command  of  the  British  troops  done  as  he  was 
told,  and  moved  with  all  speed  into  the  pass,  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  argues  Sydney  Cotton,  that  the  Afghans,  seeing  or  pre- 
tending to  see  the  treachery  which  they  feared,  would  have  fal- 
len on  the  defenceless  Feringhis  and  massacred  them  to  a man. 
But  concluding  from  the  regularity  of  the  fire  that  it  was  only 
a salute,  he  wisely  stood  his  ground,  and  the  danger  passed  by. 

A grand  Durbar  was  then  held,  ‘ a collection  of  cut-throats 
and  villains,’ says  the  Chief  Commissioner,  ‘such  as  I had  never 
found  myself  among  before.’  Conspicuous  among  them  was 
Saadut  Khan,  chief  of  the  Mohmunds,  our  own  arch-enemy. 
But,  at  Sir  John  Lawrence’s  request,  the  Dost  ordered  him  to 
withdraw  from  the  Durbar.  Two  days  afterwards  the  Dost,  with 
a venerable  white  beard — for  he  no  longer  now  cared  to  dye  it 
black — and  clad  i*  a garment  of  coarse  camel’s  hair,  entered 
British  territory,  passed  through  a line  of  7,000  British  troops, 
a mile  long,  drawn  up  to  do  him  honour,  and  pitched  his  camp 
at  Jumrood.  And  here,  on  January  5,  the  business  of  the  meet- 
ing began. 

Behind  the  Ameer  stood  his  sons,  and  on  his  left  were  his 
most  trusted  Sirdars,  while  he  himself  set  forth  at  length  his 
relations  with  Persia,  and  showed,  pathetically,  how  his  friend- 
ship for  us  had  embroiled  him  with  the  Shah,  and  had  now  led 
to  the  fall  of  Herat.  What  w’as  he  to  do  ? He  wras  ready  to  do 
our  bidding,  whatever  it  might  be,  and  witness  it  Allah  and  his 
Prophet,  he  would  henceforward  be  our  firm  friend,  though 
all  the  world  was  on  the  opposite  side.  It  was  the  cue  of  the 
Chief  Commissioner,  at  this  first  interview,  to  elicit  the  views 
of  the  Ameer  rather  than  to  set  forth  his  own  ; and  Dost  Mo- 
hammed waxed  more  eloquent,  as  he  warmed  to  the  subject, 
and  declared  that  it  wTas  the  dearest  wish  of  his  heart  to  recov- 
er Herat  ; and  that  if  the  English  would  help  him  by  making 
a strong  diversion  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  by  giving  other 
aid,  he  wrould  raise  a force  from  all  the  countries  south  of  the 


470 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


Oxus,  with  which  he  would  beat  his  enemies  in  the  field,  mine 
the  walls  of  Herat,  blow  up  its  towers,  and  take  the  place  at 
the  point  of  the  sword  ! 

At  this  point  in  the  conference  a horseman  galloped  up  to 
Sir  John  Lawrence  with  a telegraphic  message  from  Lord  Can- 
ning at  Calcutta,  which  informed  him  that  a reinforcement  of 
5,000  troops  was  about  to  be  sent  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  and 
that  an  article  would  be  inserted  in  any  treaty  of  peace  with 
Persia  binding  her  to  renounce  all  pretensions  to  Afghanistan, 
and  to  withdraw  her  troops  from  Herat.  The  message  ended 
with  the  significant  words,  ‘You  may  make  use  of  this.’  And 
John  Lawrence  did  make  use  of  the  first  part  at  once,  but  re- 
served the  second  and  more  important  announcement  for  a 
future  day.  Meanwhile  he  begged  the  Ameer  to  lay  before  him 
an  exact  statement  of  the  means  at  his  disposal.  This,  replied 
the  Ameer,  was  a very  difficult  matter,  and  "would  require  a 
full  day  for  its  consideration.  So  the  meeting  broke  up. 

Two  days  afterwards,  on  January  7,  the  conference  met  again, 
and,  this  time,  at  the  tent  of  the  Chief  Commissioner.  The 
Ameer’s  statement  showed  that  he  had  34,000  men  and  61  guns 
at  his  disposal ; a force  which  he  thought  ought  to  be  increased, 
in  view  of  the  expedition  to  Herat,  to  50,000  men  and  100  guns. 
‘But  if,’  he  said,  ‘you  tell  me  to  take  more  troops,  Twill  take 
more  ; if  less,  less.  You,  Sahibs,  know  Persia  best.’  The  Chief 
Commissioner  proceeded  to  point  out  the  magnitude  of  the  en- 
terprise, and  the  divisions  of  the  Afghans  at  home  which  had 
cost  them  Attock,  Cashmere,  and  Peshawur  ; when  Hafiz-ji, 
one  of  the  Sirdars,  interposed  with  the  very  pertinent  question, 

‘ Did  we  intend  to  send  any  British  officers  into  Afghanistan  ?’ 

‘ If  we  give  you  money  and  material  to  aid  in  your  expedition 
to  Herat,’  replied  Sir  John,  ‘we  must  send  officers  to  see  that  it 
is  properly  applied,  but  they  will  exercise  no  kind  of  authority 
or  command.’  The  matter  dropped  for  the  time;  and  on  the 
following  day,  the  Ajneer’s  sons  brought  in  more  detailed  state- 
ments of  their  resources,  which  made  it  clear  that  if  the  expe- 
dition to  Herat  lasted  only  a year,  a contribution  of  63  lacs  of 
rupees,  of  50  guns,  and  of  8,000  stand  of  arms  would  be  re- 
quired from  us,  besides  an  unlimited  supply  of  ammunition. 
This  was  a large  demand,  and  led  John  Lawrence  to  ask  how 
much  would  be  required  if  a strictly  defensive  policy  were  ob- 
served towards  Persia. 

‘The  question,’  replied  one  of  the  Sirdars,  ‘between  Persians 


*856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM.  . 


47i 


and  Afghans  is  not  merely  of  this  world,  but  of  the  next  ; for 
Sunnis  and  Shiahs  can  never  unite  ; but  the  matter  shall  be 
considered,  and  if  you  prefer  it,  the  Afghans,  contrary  to  their 
wishes  and  their  usual  practice,  will  remain  on  the  defensive. 
In  this  case,  4,000  stand  of  arms  and  ammunition,  together  with 
sufficient  money  to  support  8,000  additional  infantry,  is  all  that 
we  shall  ask  of  you.’  Of  these  terms  and  this  policy  the  Chief 
Commissioner  approved,  and  telegraphed  his  recommendation  of 
them  to  the  Government  of  India.  Lord  Canning  telegraphed 
back  his  assent,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  then  advised  the  Dost  to 
give  up  the  expedition  to  Herat,  and  offered  4,000  muskets  and  a 
subsidy  of  a lac  of  rupees  a month  so  long  as  the  war  should  last, 
or  as  it  should  please  the  British  Government  to  continue  it. 

There  was  only  one  condition  of  the  subsidy  which  gave  rise 
to  serious  discussion — the  right  to  depute  British  officers  to 
Cabul,  wrho  were  to  see  that  it  was  properly  applied.  The 
Ameer  ‘ in  a very  marked  and  decided  manner  ’ observed  that 
he  had  only  consented  to  such  a step  on  the  understanding  that 
an  attempt  would  be  made  by  our  aid  to  recover  Herat.  And 
on  the  following  day,  when  the  draft  articles  of  the  treaty  were 
being  discussed,  the  Sirdars,  after  talking  the  matter  over  with 
him,  renewed  their  objections  to  the  proposal.  It  was  not  so 
much,  they  remarked,  that  the  Ameer  personally  objected  to 
the  presence  of  English  officers  at  Cabul,  as  that  the  people 
would  not  like  it  ; their  national  and  religious  feelings  would 
be  outraged  ; they  would  think,  when  they  saw  Europeans  in 
the  capital,  that  the  old  days  of  Shah  Soojah  were  come  back 
again,  and  the  mission  would  thus  defeat  its  own  end.  Let  a 
native  vakil  be  placed  at  Cabul,  and  let  British  officers,  if  the 
British  Government  insisted  on  it,  be  placed  at  Candahar,  where 
they  would  be  more  useful  with  reference  to  the  Persian  War, 
aud  less  obnoxious  to  the  population.  An  alliance  between  the 
Afghans  and  English  must  be  brought  about  gradually.  ‘ Do 
not  let  us  go,’  they  said,  ‘ too  fast.’ 

Wise  advice,  wisely  listened  to  ! Otherwise  the  tragedy  of 
1878  might  have  been  anticipated  in  1857.  The  Lumsden 
brothers  might  have  been  as  Cavagnari  and  his  followers.  The 
outbreak  of  the  Mutiny  might  have  found  us  deeply  plunged  in 
a war  with  Afghanistan,  and  the  resources  of  the  Punjab  must 
then  have  been  concentrated  on  Peshawur,  rather  than  poured 
down  in  one  continuous  stream  towards  Delhi.  Could  India 
have  weathered  such  a storm  ? 


472 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


The  theoretical  right,  indeed,  to  send  officers  temporarily  to 
Cabul  was  insisted  on.  But  assurances  were  given  that  it  would 
not  be  called  into  exercise  at  present  ; and  it  was  clear  that,  so 
long  as  the  Chief  Commissioner  had  any  voice  in  the  matter,  it 
would  not  be  exercised  at  all.  The  announcement  that,  when- 
ever a treaty  was  made  with  Persia,  the  Afghans  should  not  be 
left  in  the  lurch,  but  be  included  in  it,  was  wisely  kept  by  John 
Lawrence  to  the  last,  when  the  Sirdars  pointedly  put  the  ques- 
tion to  him.  They  were  delighted  to  receive  his  answer,  but, 
for  some  reason  or  other,  forgot  to  ask  that  a promise  to  that 
effect  should  be  inserted  in  the  treaty.  ‘ But,’  remarks  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  characteristically  enough  in  writing  to  Lord  Canning, 
‘ I consider  that  my  verbal  assurance  pledges  Government  as 
much  as  a written  article.’  It  was  reserved  for  the  authors  of 
the  second  Afghan  War  to  lay  down  the  opposite  doctrine,  and 
contend  in  arguments  of  evil  omen  and  of  fatal  consequences 
that  the  word  of  an  English  officer — even  of  a Governor-Gen- 
eral— is  not  his  bond,  and  can  be  disavowed  at  convenience  ! 

On  January  26,  at  4 p.m.,  the  articles  of  agreement  were  signed 
and  sealed  in  the  Ameer’s  tent  ; the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the 
Punjab,  the  Commissioner  of  Peshawur,  and  Major  Lumsden 
being  present  on  one  side  ; the  Ameer,  his  son,  Sirdar  Azim 
Khan,  his  brother,  and  many  Sirdars,  being  present  on  the 
other.  ‘ I have  now  made  an  alliance,’  exclaimed  the  Ameer, 
1 with  the  British  Government,  and  come  what  may,  I will  keep 
it  till  death.’  And  he  was  as  good  as  his  word.  Handsome 
presents  were  distributed  among  the  Sirdars  by  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner ; and  a batch  of  wretched  horses  were  given  by  the 
Ameer  to  the  representatives  of  England.  The  Afghans  returned 
to  their  homes  well  satisfied,  but  not  so  Sir  John  Lawrence.  For 
in  spite  of  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty,  and  the  admirable  way 
in  which  he  had  managed  to  minimise  its  dangers,  in  spite  also 
of  the  warm  thanks  of  the  Governor-General,  he  could  not  help 
asking  himself  whether  the  lac  of  rupees  to  be  poured  monthly 
into  the  lap  of  the  Ameer,  would  not  have  been  better  spent  in 
strengthening  our  defences  at  home,  or  in  finishing  the  great 
public  works  in  the  Punjab  which  were  even  then  being  starved 
for  want  of  means. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  not  been  very  favourably  impressed 
with  the  trustworthiness  of  his  venerable  guest,  and  one  inci- 
dent of  their  intercourse,  related  in  the  course  of  a letter  to  Lord 
Canning,  is  much  too  good  to  be  lost. 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


473 


Peshawur  : January  30,  1857. 

As  regards  the  Ameer,  it  is  very  difficult  to  divine  what  are  his  real 
views  and  feelings.  I confess  that  1 felt  no  confidence  in  anything  which 
he  said.  His  interests  at  present  lead  him  to  turn  to  us.  But  there  can 
be  no  security  that  he  will  remain  faithful  one  day  longer  than  seems 
convenient.  He  has  no  sense  of  shame.  He  sent  me  as  a present,  the 
only  one  he  made,  ten  horses  and  two  mules,  nearly  all  of  which  were 
spavined  and  worn  out.  The  whole  lot  did  not  fetch  1,000  rupees,  and 
this  notwithstanding  the  princely  way  in  which  we  treated  him  ! 

One  day  Colonel  Edwardes  and  I had  a very  amusing  scene  with  him. 
After  we  had  concluded  our  public  discussions,  I said  I should  like  to  see 
the  Ameer  for  a few  minutes  alone.  Upon  this  all  his  chiefs  and  court- 
iers retired.  I then  told  the  Ameer  that,  as  a pledge  of  his  good  feeling 
towards  us,  I asked  him  to  let  me  see  any  letters  which  he  had  received 
from  Maharaja  Golab  Sing  during  the  last  war.  I told  him  that- it  was 
well  known  that  negotiations  and  even  an  agreement  had  been  carried 
on  and  concluded  between  the  Ameer  and  the  Maharaja,  to  which  the 
latter  had  not  adhered  ; that  therefore  the  Ameer  was  free  in  honour  to 
take  his  own  course,  and  that  it  would  no  doubt  be  considered  a mark  of 
friendly  feeling  if  he  himself  told  me  what  had  occurred,  and  showed  me 
such  documents  as  were  in  his  possession.  That  such  had  been  the  case 
I consider  to  be  beyond  doubt.  Both  Sirdar  Chuttur  Sing  and  Raja 
Shere  Sing  had  told  me  so  at  Lahore  after  the  war,  and  it  was  well  known 
that  the  Ameer  had  often  publicly  complained  of  the  want  of  faith  of  the 
Maharaja.  Still  the  Ameer  absolutely  denied  that  anything  of  the  kind 
had  occurred. 

When  pressed  by  me  a good  deal  on  the  subject  he  exclaimed,  ‘ I 
swear  by  Abraham,  by  Moses,  by  Esau,  by  Jesus  Christ,  and,  if  there  be 
any  other  prophets,  I swear  by  them,  that  I have  no  papers  of  the  kind, 
and  that  nothing  ever  was  arranged  between  me  and  the  Maharaja.’ 
When  I told  the  Ameer  that  I could  not  credit  his  statement,  he  ex- 
pressed no  indignation  whatever.  The  only  feeling  seemed  to  be  that 
of  disappointment ! Sirdar  Azim  Khan,  his  son,  who  was  present,  even- 
tually said  that  he  would  ascertain  if  any  documents  were  forthcoming  ; 
and  if  there  were  any,  that  they  should  be  produced.  He  added  that  he 
did  not  know  whether  the  Ameer  had  any,  but  that  Sultan  Mohammed 
Khan  probably  had.  When  Azim  asked  us  if  we  did  not  believe  the 
Ameer,  and  we  replied  that  we  did  not,  he  began  to  laugh  heartily, 
and,  I verily  believe,  had  a higher  opinion  of  our  intellects  than  be- 
fore. . . . 

I am  delighted  to  hear  what  your  Lordship  has  said  respecting  a move 
from  this  side  against  Herat.  I feel  the  strongest  conviction  of  the  wis- 
dom of  these  views.  I can  conceive  no  concurrence  of  circumstances 
which  should  take  us  up  there.  The  expense  would  throw  us  back  twenty 
years.  Our  army  is  not  adapted  to  such  an  expedition.  It  would,  I 
verily  believe,  be  fighting  the  enemy’s  battles  to  attempt  it.  A reverse 
at  this  distance  from  our  resources  must  prove  disastrous  in  the  extreme. 


474 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


And  even  if  we  were  successful  and  Herat  was  recovered,  there  would 
be  no  security  that  it  might  not  fall  into  an  enemy’s  hand  within  the  next 
five  years. 

The  effect  of  the  possession  of  Herat  by  an  enemy,  on  the  minds  of 
the  natives  of  India,  must,  of  course,  be  a matter  of  opinion.  I myself 
do  not  think  that  they  will  trouble  themselves  on  the  subject.  I believe 
I know  the  natives  and  their  opinions  and  feelings  as  well  as  most  British 
officers,  and  I was  at  Delhi,  the  seat  of  the  Mohammedan  population, 
during  the  first  siege  of  Herat  in  1839,  and,  neither  then  nor  in  the  pres- 
ent instance,  have  I perceived  that  the  natives  felt  much  interest  on  the 
subject.  One  of  the  arguments  for  the  advance  into  Afghanistan  in 
1839-40  was  that  a general  feeling  of  excitement,  a general  feeling  adverse 
to  our  rule,  existed  in  Upper  India.  I never  myself  saw  a symptom  of 
it ; and  the  best  evidence  that  such  was  not  the  case  is  that,  even  after 
unprecedented  disasters,  no  such  feeling  was  shown.  I believe  there  is  no 
man  now  alive  who  will  ever  see  a Russian  army  in  India,  and  no  Asiatic 
army  could  stand  for  a day  before  our  troops  in  the  open  plain.  To  do 
anything  against  us  in  the  field,  a large  body  of  good  European  troops 
with  plenty  of  artillery,  and  the  whole  in  proper  order,  must  come.  A 
large  army  cannot  come  rapidly  through  the  intervening  countries  even 
between  the  Oxus  and  the  Indus  without  being  demoralised  ; and  if  a 
small  force  should  advance,  or  a large  force  attempt  it  by  slow  degrees, 
in  one  case  they  will  be  beaten,  and  in  the  other  they  will  not  be  able  to 
feed  themselves.  Afghanistan  does  not  grow  food  for  a large  army  of 
strangers.  It  can  scarce  feed  its  own  population.  No  means  of  trans- 
port exist  for  such  a force.  Carts  there  are  none,  nor  roads  along  which 
they  could  move.  The  few  canals  in  the  country  would  prove  wholly 
inadequate  to  supply  conveyance.  Sirdar  Azim  himself  incidentally  told 
me  that  such  was  the  case.  . . . Pray  excuse  this  hurried  letter.  I 

march  towards  Lahore  to-morrow,  and  have  more  to  do  just  now  than  I 
can  easily  manage. 

Not  that  Sir  John  did  not  get  on  excellently  with  the  Dost, 
whose  faults  he  saw  so  clearly.  The  Dost  was  as  clever  as  he 
was  dignified  ; and,  what  was  better  still,  he  was,  like  most  Ori- 
entals, an  excellent  story-teller.  He  would  sit  up  all  night,  tell- 
ing the  most  amusing  stories  to  the  Chief  Commissioner  ; and 
the  Chief  Commissioner,  who,  as  I have  given  my  readers  to  be- 
lieve, was  no  bad  hand  at  telling  stories  himself,  would  often  re- 
taliate in  kind.  The  Dost  was  fond  of  talking  of  his  poverty, 
and  complained  that,  with  all  his  care,  his  expenditure  invariably 
exceeded  his  income  ! ‘ How  do  you  get  on,  then  ? ’ said  Sir  John. 

‘ Why,  you  see,’  replied  the  Dost,  with  perfect  gravity,  ‘ I borrow 
each  year  from  the  money-lenders,  who  arc  generally  Persians. 
They  know  that  as  soon  as  I am  dead  my  sons  will  spring  at 


1856-57  ' THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


475 


each  other’s  throats,  that  there  will  be  general  anarchy,  and 
that  they  will  lose  everything.  So  when  they  press  me  for  pay- 
ment I call  them  together  and,  putting  on  a long  face,  tell  them 
that  I am  being  killed  by  anxiety  about  money.  They  see  it  is 
better  to  forgive  the  debt,  and  keep  themselves  and  me  in  life 
and  prosperity  a little  longer.  And  so  we  all  start  afresh  ! ’ 

The  mission  of  British  officers  to  Afghanistan,  of  which  so 
much  had  been  said  in  the  conference,  was,  by  desire  of  the 
Ameer,  not  despatched  till  the  13th  of  March  following.  The 
officers  selected  for  the  dangerous  and  thankless  office  were 
Harry  Lumsden,  whose  name  has  been  so  often  mentioned  in 
this  biography  before,  and  his  younger  brother  Peter,  whom  the 
Chief  Commissioner  describes  as  1 a very  fine  young  fellow,  uni- 
versally loved,  a capital  rider  and  surveyor,  good-tempered,  ac- 
tive, and  intelligent.’  But  Peter  Lumsden  fell  ill,  and  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  not  thinking  it  right  to  send  anyone  who  was  in 
weak  health  so  far  beyond  the  reach  of  medical  assistance,  tele- 
graphed to  Lieutenant  Henry  Norman,  a young  officer  of  equal- 
ly high  promise,  who  was  then  serving  as  Assistant  Adjutant- 
General  at  Meerut,  to  come  up  and  take  his  place.  But  the 
proposal  to  send  a doctor  with  the  expedition,  whose  medicine 
chest  would,  probably,  do  more  than  anything  else  to  make  the 
mission  popular  at  Candahar,  met  the  difficulty;  and  Norman 
remained  behind,  to  do,  as  it  turned  out,  even  more  perilous 
and  much  more  important  work  at  Delhi,  than  would  have  fall- 
en to  him  at  Candahar.  Dr.  Bellew,  who  is  now  well  known 
by  his  writings  on  Afghanistan  and  Persia,  was  the  medical 
officer  selected  to  accompany  the  mission.  Its  primary  ob- 
ject was  to  see  that  the  subsidy  given  by  England  was  not 
misapplied  or  wasted  by  the  Ameer.  But  its  members  were 
also  bidden,  in  their  instructions,  to  bear  in  mind  that  they 
would  ‘ do  good  service  to  the  British  power  in  India,  if  they 
could  impress  upon  all  with  whom  they  came  into  contact,  that 
we  had  no  desire  to  send  a single  man,  armed  or  unarmed,  across 
the  border,  except  with  the  good-will  of  the  Afghan  nation  ; 
that  our  presence  was  temporary  and  for  one  single  purpose, 
which  would  cease  with  the  war  : that  what  we  desired  was  that 
the  Afghans  should  always  retain  their  freedom  and  independ- 
ence and  defend  themselves  effectually  against  aggression  from 
whatever  side  ; that  it  was  for  this  one  object  that  our  aid  was 
given,  and  that  all  we  asked  in  return  from  them  was  confidence 
in  the  purity  of  our  intentions.’ 


476 


LIFE-  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


It  will  be  remembered  that  when  the  war  with  Persia  had  first 
been  in  prospect,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  considering  it  of  para- 
mount importance  that  the  man  selected  for  the  chief  command 
should  have  political  as  well  as  military  ability,  had  strongly 
recommended  his  brother  Henry  for  the  post.  Failing  him,  he 
had,  in  a second  letter,  recommended  Sir  James  Outram  ; and 
failing  him,  again,  Colonel  Jacob,  whose  mixed  political  and 
military  experience  in  Scinde  would,  he  thought,  in  spite  of  his 
defects,  ‘ an  acrimonious  temper  and  an  overweening  vanity,’ 
well  fit  him  for  it.  It  turned  out  that  the  appointment  lay  not 
with  Lord  Canning,  but  with  the  Home  Government ; and 
while  Lord  Canning  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  were  discussing 
the  question,  their  choice  had  already  fallen  on  the  man  whom 
Sir  John  had  put  second  on  his  list.  Outram  had  gone  home  in 
May,  to  all  appearance  quite  broken  down  in  health  by  his  long 
and  brilliant  labours.  But  like  the  old  war-horse  which  scents 
the  battle  from  afar,  he  seemed  to  recover  all  his  energies  at 
the  sound  of  arms  ; and  by  the. beginning  of  the  new  year  (1857) 
he  was  busily  engaged  in  despatching  from  Bombay  the  second 
division  of  his  force  for  the  Persian  War. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  Henry  Lawrence  was  offered 
by  Lord  Canning  a post  for  which  he  was,  perhaps,  even  better 
fitted  than  the  command  in  Persia.  He  had,  for  four  years 
past,  been  struggling  to  infuse  some  of  his  vital  force  into  the 
effete  princes  of  Rajpootana,  and  sighing  over  their  impracti- 
cability and  their  passive  resistance.  And  the  news  that  he 
had  been  offered  and  had  accepted  the  Chief  Commissionership 
of  the  newly  annexed  province  of  Oude  reached  John  Law- 
rence as  he  was  returning  to  Lahore  from  Peshawur  in  the 
beginning  of  February.  It  seemed  to  be  a post  exactly  suited 
to  him,  and  one,  perchance,  in  which  he  might  be  able  to  carry 
out,  without  let  or  hindrance,  those  generous  schemes  for 
easing  die  transition  from  native  to  British  rule,  in  which 
he  had  been,  as  he  imagined,  so  much  thwarted  in  the  Punjab. 
At  all  events,  there  would  be  no  Board  here,  and  no  brotherly 
heart-burnings  in  his  way.  He  had,  as  he  said  himself, 
* some  five  or  six  different  diseases  about  him,’  but  he  at  once 
gave  up  his  intention  of  returning  to  England.  Health  and 
vigour  seemed  to  come  back  at  a bound,  as  they  had  done  to  Sir 
James  Outram  ; and  having  first  stipulated  with  Lord  Canning 
that  his  elder  brother  George  should  succeed  him  in  the  post 
he  was  vacating,  he  set  out  from  Rajpootana  at  once. 


io5o-5/ 


'1  HE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


4 77 


But  he  was  unaccompanied  in  this,  the  last  migration,  as 
it  was  to  prove,  of  his  travel-worn  life,  by  his  faithful  compan- 
ion who  had  shared  with  him  the  pang  of  parting  from  the 
Punjab,  and  who  was  now  resting  for  ever  from  the  work  and 
the  worry,  the  aspirations  and  the  disappointments  of  Indian 
life,  beneath  the  pleasant  shades  of  Mount  Aboo. 

Whether  it  was  Henry  Lawrence  himself,  who,  conscious  of 
his  own  deficiencies  as  a civil  administrator,  wrote  to  his 
brother  John,  asking  him  to  suggest  anything  that  might  be  a 
help  to  him  in  his  new  office  ; or  whether  it  was  John  who, 
fearing  that  the  defects  of  method  which  had  made  his 
brother’s  life  a burden  to  him  in  the  Board,  might  re-appear, 
with  much  worse  results  now  that  he  stood  alone  as  Chief 
Commissioner  in  Oude,  determined,  unasked,  to  play  the  part 
of  Mentor  to  him,  I have  been  unable  to  discover.  But  a long 
extract  from  a letter  containing  such  hints  has  come  into  my 
hands,  and  I quote  it  here  as  one  more  illustration,  alike  of 
the  differences  between  the  brothers,  and  of  the  true  brotherly 
feeling  which — as  suggestive  in  what  it  says  as  in  what  it 
omits  to  say — had,  once  again,  thrown  those  differences  into 
the  shade. 

February  18,  1857. 

....  Now  as  regards  official  matters  : I would  say,  give  no  orders 
to  Commissioners  or  District  officers,  except  in  an  emergency,  direct ; 
when  you  do  so,  send  a copy  to  the  Judicial  Commissioner  or  Financial 
Commissioner,  as  the  case  may  be.  If  you  do  this  you  secure  the  best 
chance  of  their  working  with  you.  It  is  sufficiently  difficult  to  get  men 
to  be  subordinate.  By  letting  them  ignore  their  immediate  superiors, 
you  put  wind  into  their  heads  and  complicate  matters.  Talk  to  the 
subordinate  officers  as  much  as  you  like,  and  indicate  in  this  way  your 
general  views,  but  send  orders  through  the  regular  channels.  Even 
your  friends  will  resent  your  writing  direct  to  their  subordinates. 
Secondly,  if  petitions  come  to  you,  and  you  wish  to  save  time,  you  can, 
without  any  harm,  refer  them  direct  to  the  local  officers.  But  then,  in 
doing  so,  you  should  tell  them  to  reply  through  their  superiors.  Thus, 
a man  says  his  village  is  over-assessed  and  so  forth.  You  send  it  to 
the  Deputy  Commissioner  of  the  District  for  information,  which  he  will 
send  up  to  his  Commissioner,  who  will  send  it  on  with  his  views.  By 
this  plan  some  delay  occurs,  but  work,  when  so  done,  is  done  once  for 
all.  I would  also  take  up  such  complaints  very  sparingly.  Every 
native  likes  to  go  to  the  top  sawyer,  and  it  is  only  by  close  examination 
and  cross-questioning  that  the  truth  comes  out,  and,  even  then,  not 
always.  When  men  petition  me,  the  first  thing  I ask  is,  ‘ Have  you 
been  to  the  Deputy  Commissioner  ?’  ‘Yes.’  If  they  are  still  dissatis- 


478 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


tied,  ‘ Have  you  been  to  the  Commissioner  ?’  and  so  on.  If  this  has  also 
been  done,  then  I ask  for  a copy  of  the  final  order.  If  it  is  not  forth- 
coming, I usually  refer  them  to  the  proper  court.  If  I think,  however, 
that  anything  bad  has  occurred,  then  I write  and  request  information. 

A Chief  Commissioner  has  not  much  direct  power,  but  a good  deal  of 
indirect  influence.  He  cannot  reverse  judicial  sentences,  for  instance, 
but  he  can  question  their  legality  or  propriety.  He  can  direct  that  they 
be  reconsidered  ; or  if  this  be  refused,  which  of  course  it  would  not  be, 
he  can  refer  to  Government.  In  administrative  matters  he  has  most 
power.  In  all  matters  of  general  arrangement  his  voice  would  generally 
be  decisive.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  on  what  points  hitches  and  difficulties 
will  arise.  Do  what  you  will,  arise  they  will.  The  great  rule  seems  to 
me  to  consist  in  not  deciding  before  you  have  both  sides  of  the  question, 
as  far  as  possible,  before  you.  There  is  too  much  writing  and  reference 
to  Government.  One  has  not  sufficient  time  to  think  and  digest.  The 
mechanical  work  to  be  got  through  occupies  the  whole  day. 

The  work  here  has  vastly  increased  since  you  left.  I am  often  fairly 
bewildered  with  it,  though  I work  at  the  desk  steadily  from  the  minute 
I come  in  before  breakfast — with  an  interval  of  ten  minutes  for 
breakfast — until  dusk,  or,  at  any  rate,  until  I can  no  longer  see.  I 
never  take  a holiday,  or  knock  off  even  for  an  hour.  The  Public  Works 
Department  has  added  to  the  business  immensely.  It,  at  present,  oc- 
cupies half  my  time.  I tried  to  carry  on  as  well  as  I could,  so  as  grad- 
ually to  get  things  into  order,  and  to  work  out  what  was  necessary  to 
be  done.  I have  failed,  however,  to  a great  extent.  While  the  Engi- 
neers attack  me  for  my  interference,  the  Government  and  the  Court 
assail  me  for  not  keeping  them  in  order ! The  expenditure  has  been 
excessive,  and  the  consequence  is,  that  now  we  are  hauled  up  and  fairly 
muzzled  ; and  not  being  able  to  do  anything  or  spend  anything  without 
going  through  the  regular  routine,  even  in  an  emergency,  I have  to  re- 
port to  Government  and  show  cause  for  having  sanctioned  1,000  Rs. 
which  has  not  previously  appeared  in  the  Budget. 

I do  not  recollect  anything  else  which  strikes  me  as  worthy  of  note. 
The  only  point  in  particular  which  seems  to  me  of  value  is  your  mode  of 
doing  your  own  work.  In  civil  administration,  the  great  secret  appears 
to  me  to  consist  in  avoiding  arrears.  To  do  this  you  must  always  keep 
at  the  wheel,  and  endeavour,  as  far  as  possible,  to  work  off  daily  all 
which  comes  in.  Though,  in  the  whole  year,  you  may  get  through  all 
your  work,  much  will  depend  on  its  being  done  in  the  way  I describe. 
Your  own  office  people  cannot  get  through  it  properly  unless  it  comes  in 
and  goes  out  like  a running  stream ; and  this  is  still  more  important  for 
the  working  of  the  subordinate  departments.  Before  a work  or  a system 
is  set  agoing,  try  and  give  your  orders  ; if  you  cannot  do  so,  better  as  far 
as  possible  accept  those  of  others,  even  if  it  do  not  altogether  accord 
with  your  own  ideas. 

We  had  a good  deal  of  trouble  with  the  Dost.  He  struck  me  as  thor- 
oughly untrustworthy.  He  looks  old  and  feeble,  but  very  astute.  . . 


IS56-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


479 


His  men  are  stout  fellows,  but  have  no  drill  and  are  badly  armed  and 
equipped.  Their  pay  just  keeps  them  from  starving  and  no  more. 
I bought  up  all  the  accoutrements  of  H.M.  87th  Regiment  for  300  Rs. 
and  odd,  and  gave  them  to  Sirdar  Azim,  to  his  great  delight.  The 
Afghans  seem  to  think  that  strength  consists  in  such  things. 

A letter  to  Lord  Canning,  written  about  the  same  time,  and 
asking  that  an  Engineer  officer  might  be  attached  to  his  office, 
as  Secretary  in  the  Public  Works  Department,  gives  some 
additional  details  respecting  the  growth  of  his  work  as  Chief 
Commissioner,  that  Sisyphaean  stone  which  it  was  his  duty  and 
his  pride  to  keep  always  rolling.  The  more  enthusiastically,  in 
fact,  that  he  and  his  subordinates  threw  themselves  into  their 
work,  in  order  that  they  might  keep  abreast  of  its  require- 
ments, the  more  the  field  seemed  to  widen  out  before  them  ; 
and,  rightly  judged,  it  was,  perhaps,  their  highest  reward  that 
it  should  be  so. 

Such  an  officer  (writes  John  Lawrence)  would  prove  of  immense  assist- 
ance to  me.  Since  I was  made  Chief  Commissioner  in  the  Punjab,  the 
work  has  increased  by  fully  one  half.  In  three  years  the  letters  received 
in  my  office  have  increased  from  8,144  per  annum  to  10,502;  those  issued 
from  9,093  to  13,964.  These  are  exclusive  of  enclosures  and  demi-official 
letters.  In  1856  I disposed  of  1,500  cases  of  rent-free  tenures  myself, 
an  amount  of  work  which  in  Bengal  or  the  North-West  Provinces,  where 
similar  investigations  were  going  on,  would  have  occupied  the  time  of 
one  or  two  Commissioners  at  least.  My  pen  is  scarcely  ever  out  of  my 
hand.  I have  no  complaint  to  make.  So  long  as  I can  do  it,  I will 
continue  working,  but  any  arrangement  which  gave  me  some  relief  would 
prove  very  acceptable.  And  the  one  I now  propose  would  do  this.  It 
would  also  make  me  more  useful,  by  giving  me  time  for  reflection,  time 
to  digest  many  of  the  important  measures  which  I have  to  take  up.  The 
arrangement  would  not  cost  Government  a rupee. 

The  months  of  February  and  March,  1857,  were  spent  by  John 
Lawrence  in  administrative  labours  in  the  north  and  north-west 
of  his  province,  at  Rawul  Pindi,  Shahpore,  Jhung,  and  Futteh- 
pore  Gogaira,  and  he  reached  Lahore  on  March  27.  Unfor- 
tunately there  is  a gap  in  his  correspondence  for  six  weeks 
from  this  time,  which  I have  been  unable,  by  repeated  appeals 
to  the  recollections  of  his  friends,  satisfactorily  to  fill  up.  His 
health  was  bad.  He  suffered  terribly  from  neuralgia,  and,  on 
one  occasion,  he  so  far  gave  in  to  the  pressure  put  upon  him 
by  the  doctors  as  to  talk  of  returning  to  England  for  a time, 


4-8 o LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE.  1856-57 

and  to  write  to  Montgomery,  whom  he  wished  to  make  his  lo- 
cum tenens,  on  the  duties  of  his  office. 

We  know  now,  well  enough,  from  other  sources,  what  had 
been  going  on  in  the  bazaars  and  the  cantonments,  among 
Muslims  and  Hindustanis  alike,  during  this  critical  period. 
We  know  that  ‘ the  little  cloud,  no  bigger  than  a man’s  hand,’  of 
which  Lord  Canning  had  spoken  on  his  departure  from  England, 
had  already  risen  above  the  horizon,  and,  unnoticed,  or  only 
half  noticed  by  anyone  in  authority,  was  beginning  to  overspread 
the  firmament.  How  little  John  Lawrence  himself  can  have  an- 
ticipated the  storm  which  was  about  to  burst  over  India,  we  may 
gather  from  the  fact  that  he  was  now,  once  more,  contemplating 
a visit  to  Cashmere,  that  he  communicated  his  wishes  to  Lord 
Canning,  and  that  it  was  only  the  reply  of  the  Governor-General, 
that  possibly  his  services  might  be  urgently  required  nearer 
home,  which  led  him  once  more  to  forego  his  purpose. 

True  enough  it  was  that  there  had  been  symptoms  of  some- 
thing brewing,  of  something,  as  the  saying  is,  ‘ in  the  air,’  which 
had  appeared  with  the  beginning  of  the  new  year  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Calcutta,  and  had,  by  this  time,  been  observed  at 
Umballa,  a thousand  miles  away  on  the  edge  of  the  Himalayas 
and  within  the  limits  of  John  Lawrence’s  own  province.  There 
had  been  those  mysterious  ‘chupatties,’  pancakes  of  flour  and 
water,  which  meant  no  one  quite  knew  what,  and  had  passed 
on,  no  one  quite  knew  how,  from  village  to  village,  and  from 
district  to  district  throughout  the  North-West  Provinces.  There 
were  placards  proclaiming  the  Jehad  or  Holy  War  in  the  name 
of  God  and  of  the  Prophet,  which  had  been  nailed  to  the  Jumma 
Musjid  in  Delhi,  under  the  very  noses  of  the  British  authorities. 
There  had  been  weird  prophecies  which,  passing  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  and  losing  nothing  in  the  process,  told  of  coming  disaster 
to  the  Feringhis.  There  had  been  incendiary  fires,  blazing  forth 
with  ominous  frequency  in  the  cantonments,  which  were  only 
outward  and  visible  signs  of  other  and  fiercer  fires  which  were 
smouldering  and  struggling  within  the  Sepoys’  hearts.  Finally, 
there  was  the  substitution  of  the  Enfield  rifle  for  the  Brown 
Bess,  and  of  the  lubricated  for  the  ordinary  cartridge,  which, 
whether  by  our  fate  or  by  our  fault,  had  brought  to  a head  all 
those  vague  and  unreasoning  fears  which  the  extinction  of  na- 
tive dynasties  and  the  annexation  of  native  states,  the  ousting 
of  talukdars  and  the  resumption  of  jagheers,  the  introduction 
of  ‘ fire-carriages  ’ and  of  * lightning-posts,’ — in  short,  every  step 


1856-57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


481 

in  the  ‘ moral  and  material  progress  ’ of  India,  had,  each  and 
all,  some  more,  some  less,  some  here,  some  there,  contributed 
to  awaken  in  the  breasts  of  our  pampered  and  ignorant  and 
auspicious  Sepoys. 

The  cartridges  served  out  to  them,  lubricated,  as  they  thought, 
with  the  fat  of  the  cow,  the  sacred  animal  of  the  Hindus,  and 
of  the  pig,  the  unclean  animal  of  the  Mohammedans,  were,  at 
once,  a cause  and  a symptom  of  the  fast-spreading  panic  ; for 
they  furnished  one  more,  and,  as  it  seemed,  a crowning  proof 
of  the  blow  which  Government  was  insidiously  preparing  to 
strike  at  the  most  sacred  feelings  and  institutions  of  both  sec- 
tions of  the  community.  Panic  is  always  blind.  It  grows  bv 
what  it  feeds  on,  by  the  operation  of  the  medicines  which  are 
administered  to  check  its  growth,  no  less  than  by  its  natural 
food.  Proclamations  and  apologies  and  concessions,  if  they 
tended,  momentarily,  to  allay  the  symptoms  of  the  rising  terror, 
only  served,  ultimately,  to  increase  its  strength.  To  demon- 
strate, as  one  kind-hearted  General  after  another  attempted  to 
do  to  his  bewildered  troops,  the  absurdity  of  their  fears,  was 
only  to  give  one  proof  the  more  of  their  reality  ; and  so  from 
Dumdum  and  Barrackpore,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  capital 
of  India,  the  smouldering  mischief  spread  to  Agra,  the  capital 
of  the  North-Western  Provinces  ; to  Meerut,  the  largest  mili- 
tary station  in  Hindustan,  and  the  strongest  in  European  troops 
of  all  arms  ; to  Delhi,  the  capital  of  the  Mogul,  where  his  effete 
representative  was  dozing  away  the  last  hours  of  his  reign  and 
of  his  life  ; and  so  on,  to  Umballa,one  of  the  chief  depots  for 
* instruction  in  musketry  ’ — in  the  fatal  art,  that  is,  which,  if  it 
helped  the  Sepoys  to  kill  their  enemies,  must  needs  first,  they 
thought,  ruin  those  who  practised  it,  both  in  body  and  soul. 

What  booted  it  that  warnings,  punishments,  modifications, 
explanations,  and  denials  followed  one  after  another  in  rapid 
and  bewildering  succession  ? What  booted  it  that  the  rpth 
Native  Infantry  regiment,  which  had  mutinied  at  Berhampore 
in  February  was  disbanded  ; that  the  fanatic  ‘ Pandy  ’ of  the 
34th  Native  Infantry,  who  had  made  a murderous  assault  on 
an  English  officer  at  Barrackpore,  was  hanged  ; and  that  the 
seven  companies  who  had  been  silent  and  passive,  if  not 
sympathising  spectators  of  his  deed,  were  disbanded  also  ? 
What  booted  it  that  the  obnoxious  grease  had  been  analysed 
and  found  to  be  harmless  ; that  it  was,  henceforward,  to  be 
mixed  by  the  Sepoys  themselves  from  ingredients  which  they 
Vol.  I. — 31 


482 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


themselves  should  be  at  liberty  to  choose  ; that  they  were 
bidden  to  tear  off,  and  no  longer  to  bite  off  the  end  of  the 
cartridge — to  touch,  that  is,  and,  no  longer,  to  taste  the  unclean 
thing  ? ‘ Touch  not,  taste  not,  handle  not,’  was  still  the  cry  of 

the  poor  panic-stricken  Sepoy.  The  accursed  thing  which  the 
Government  had  been  driven  to  remove  from  them  in  one 
shape,  it  was  determined,  they  thought,  in  their  blind  unreas- 
oning terror,  to  force  back  on  them  in  another.  If  they  were  no 
longer  obliged  to  touch  the  greased  cartridge  with  their  hands, 
the  very  flour  which  they  were  eating  had  been  mixed,  as  they 
believed,  by  their  insidious  enemies  with  the  bone-dust  of  the 
same  forbidden  animals  ! They  would  henceforward  be  looked 
upon,  in  fact,  they  were  already  looked  upon  by  their  more  for- 
tunate comrades,  who  had  not  been  thought  worthy  of  the  honour 
of  handling  the  Enfield  rifle,  as  outcasts,  with  all  that  that  most 
horrible  of  names  implied  in  this  and  in  the  other  world. 

With  what  bitter  irony  must  the  words  of  Lord  Dalhousie’s 
farewell  Minute,  ‘ Hardly  any  circumstance  of  the  condition 
of  the  Sepoy  is  in  need  of  improvement,’  have  sounded  now  in 
the  ears  of  his  successor,  when  he  woke  up  to  the  consciousness 
that  a mutiny  of  the  whole  Bengal  army  was  not  only  not  be- 
yond the  range  of  possibilities,  but  that  it  was  a stern  and  im- 
minent reality  ! Strange,  indeed,  we  may  think  it  that  Lord 
Dalhousie  had  been  able  so  to  write  hardly  more  than  a year 
before  ; and  stranger  still  it  must  seem  that  a panic  so  real,  so 
wide-spread,  so  intractable  as  that  which  I have  described, 
should  have  taken  possession  of  the  whole  Bengal  army,  and 
yet  not  have  awakened  the  fears  of  each  and  all  of  those  who 
were,  in  any  way,  responsible  for  the  safety  of  India.  But  so  it 
was.  Vague  intimations,  indeed,  of  impending  danger,  grounded 
on  the  general  condition  of  our  Indian  army,  on  the  reduced 
numbers  of  the  British  force,  and  on  our  neglect  of  the  most 
ordinary  precautions,  may  be  discovered  in  the  writings  of  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  of  Sir  James  Outram, 
and  of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  But  no  Indian  official,  military  or 
civilian,  seems  to  have  imagined  the  possibility  of  what  was  ac- 
tually about  to  happen.  All  were  equally  taken  by  surprise 
when  the  Mutiny  broke  out. 

What  happened  at  Umballa,  within  the  precincts  of  John 
Lawrence’s  own  province,  may  be  taken  as  a sample  of  that 
which  was  taking  place  elsewhere.  There  was  at  Umballa  a 
detachment  of  the  36th  Native  Infantry,  a regiment  which 


1856—57 


THE  BREWING  OF  THE  STORM. 


483 

formed  part  of  the  escort  of  General  Anson,  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  who  was  at  that  time  engaged  on  a tour  of  inspection. 
When  he  approached  Umballa  on  his  way  to  Simla,  the  non- 
commissioned officers  of  the  detachment  went  forth  to  greet 
ttheir  comrades.  They  were  received  with  averted  looks.  The 
lotah  and  the  hookah  were  refused  them  ; they  were,  in  fact,  treated 
as  outcasts,  and  returned  to  their  detachments  ruined  men  ! 
Their  story  spread  like  wildfire  through  the  other  detachments 
at  the  musketry  school,  and  reached  the  ears  of  the  sympathising 
musketry  instructor,  Captain  Martineau.  It  was  no  news  to  him. 
‘ We  cannot,’  he  wrote,  ‘ point  out  mutiny  as  likely  to  break 
forth  here  or  there  ; for  we  all  agree  in  seeing  it  everywhere.’ 

But,  unfortunately,  all  did  not  agree  in  seeing  it  everywhere, 
and  among  those  who  saw  it  least  was  the  Commander-in-Chief 
himself.  He  addressed  the  detachments  kindly  enough,  told 
them  that  there  were  great  misconceptions  afloat  about  the  car- 
tridges, and  possibly,  for  the  moment,  succeeded  in  convincing 
them  that  they  were  misconceptions.  They  thanked  him,  but 
told  him,  respectfully,  that  for  one  man  who  would  disbelieve 
the  stories,  there  were  ten  thousand  who  believed  them  firmly. 
They  were  willing,  if  he  ordered  them  to  do  so,  not  only  to  han- 
dle, but  to  fire  the  objectionable  cartridge,  but  they  implored 
him  to  spare  them  such  utter  social  and  spiritual  ruin.  He 
took  time  to  consider  the  case,  and  held  council  by  letter  with 
the  Governor-General.  It  was  a choice  of  evils  ; and  no  doubt 
those  high  authorities  chose  what  seemed  to  them  to  be  the 
lesser  of  the  two.  The  cartridges  were  to  be  handled  and  fired 
by  the  Sepoys.  And  the  Commander-in-Chief  went  further,  and 
visited  with  sharp  censure,  not  only,  as  it  was,  perhaps,  right 
he  should,  the  men  who  had  taunted  their  comrades  with  loss  of 
caste,  but  the  unhappy  officers  who  had  shrunk  from  and  re- 
sented the  imputation. 

The  Sepoys  obeyed  the  order,  but  the  incendiary  fires  which 
burst  out  again  that  night  with  redoubled  vigour  in  all  parts  of 
the  cantonments  showed,  plainly  enough,  what  their  feelings 
were.  Still,  apparently  believing  that  he  had  allayed  the  storm, 
the  Commander-in-Chief  passed  on  to  his  cool  summer  retreat 
at  Simla.  And  if  the  Commander-in-Chief  who  was  going  in 
and  out  among  the  troops  from  day  to  day,  and  was  directly 
responsible  for  their  well-being  and  fidelity,  saw  no  danger  of  a 
formidable  outbreak,  we  can  hardly  Avonder  that  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner of  the  Punjab,  whose  relations  to  them  were  only  in- 


484 


LIFE  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 


1856-57 


direct,  who  could  only  know  what  he  was  told,  and  had  abun- 
dance of  work  of  his  own  to  do,  saw  little  danger  either,  or  at 
least  failed  to  perceive  its  imminence  or  its  urgency. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  in  bad  health  ; he  had  already  lin- 
gered at  Lahore  beyond  the  time  when  it  was  safe  for  him  to  do 
so  ; and  on  his  way  to  Murri  he  turned  aside  with  his  brother 
Richard  to  Sealkote,  which,  like  Umballa,  had  been  selected  as 
a depot  for  the  new  musketry  instruction,  in  order  that  he  might 
judge  for  himself  of  the  feelings  of  the  Sepoys,  and  see  how  the 
rifle  practice  was  getting  on.  The  result  was  highly  reassuring, 
and  he  communicated  his  impressions  to  Lord  Canning  in  a let- 
ter written  from  the  spot  on  May  4.  Its  statements  are  invested 
with  a painfully  dramatic  interest  when  we  remember  that,  be- 
fore he  wrote  again,  the  outbreak  had  already  taken  place.  In 
the  school,  he  said,  were  detachments  from  most  of  the  Punjab 
corps,  all  being  trained  in  the  new  system.  Some  were  learn- 
ing to  handle,  others  to  fire  the  rifle,  and  all  of  them  were,  to 
all  appearance,  highly  pleased  with  a weapon  which  would  en- 
able them  to  kill  an  enemy  at  a thousand  instead  of  a hundred 
yards’  distance,  and  which  seemed  particularly  suited  to  their 
mountain  warfare.  On  the  morning  of  the  same  day  on  which  he 
wrote  this  letter  he  had  gone  to  the  butts  with  the  Brigadier,  and 
had  watched  the  Regular  Infantry  also  quietly  practising.  He 
had  made  particular  inquiries  among  the  officers,  and  they  all  with 
one  accord  affirmed  that  no  ill-feeling  had  been  shown.  Speaking 
for  himself,  he  had  perceived  no  hesitation  on  the  part  of  any- 
body, and  had  given  the  Brigadier  six  small  scarves  to  be  shot  for 
as  prizes  at  the  end  of  the  instruction  ! Before  the  musketry 
course  was  finished,  those  same  Sepoys  were  to  be  found  shoot- 
ing at  other  targets,  and  with  other  prizes  in  view  than  the  scarves 
which  had  been  so  kindly  offered  by  the  Chief  Commissioner. 

John  Lawrence  left  Sealkote  and  passed  on  to  Rawul  Pindi. 
He  was  on  the  point  of  starting  thence  for  Murri,  when,  on  May 
12,  came  the  fateful  telegram  from  Delhi,  which  electrified  the 
Punjab  and  altered  his  summer  destination  : ‘ The  Sepoys,’  it 

ran,  ‘ have  come  in  from  Meerut,  and  are  burning  everything. 
Mr.  Todd  is  dead,  and,  we  hear,  several  Europeans.  We  must 
shut  up.’  In  other  words,  the  Indian  Mutiny  had  broken  out, 
and  Delhi,  the  seat  of  the  Mogul  and  the  historic  capital  of 
India,  was  in  the  hands  of  the  mutineers. 


END  OF  THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


Messrs.  CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 


publish,  under  the  general  title  of 

THE  CAMPAIGNS  of  the  CIVIL  WAR, 

A Series  of  volumes,  contributed  by  a number  of  leading 
actors  in  and  students  of  the  great  conflict  of  i86i-’65,  with 
a view  to  bringing  together,  for  the  first  time,  a full  and 
authoritative  military  history  of  the  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion.  

The  final  and  exhaustive  form  of  this  great  narrative,  in  which  every 
doubt  shall  be  settled  and  every  detail  covered,  may  be  a possibility 
only  of  the  future.  But  it  is  a matter  for  surprise  that  twenty  years 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Rebellion,  and  when  a whole  generation 
has  grown  up  needing  such  knowledge,  there  is  no  authority  which  is 
at  the  same  time  of  the  highest  rank,  intelligible  and  trustworthy,  and 
to  which  a reader  can  turn  for  any  general  view  of  the  field. 

The  many  reports,  regimental  histories,  memoirs,  and  other  materi- 
als of  value  for  special  passages,  require,  for  their  intelligent  reading, 
an  ability  to  combine  and  proportion  them  which  the  ordinary  reader 
does  not  possess.  There  have  been  no  attempts  at  general  histories 
which  have  supplied  this  satisfactorily  to  any  large  part  of  the  public. 
Undoubtedly  there  has  been  no  such  narrative  as  would  be  especially 
welcome  to  men  of  the  new  generation,  and  would  be  valued  by  a very 
great  class  of  readers  ; — and  there  has  seemed  to  be  great  danger  that 
the  time  would  be  allowed  to  pass  when  it  would  be  possible  to  give 
to  such  a work  the  vividness  and  accuracy  that  come  from  personal 
recollection.  These  facts  led  to  the  conception  of  the  present  work. 

From  every  department  of  the  Government,  from  the  officers  of  the 
army,  and  from  a great  number  of  custodians  of  records  and  special  infor- 
mation everywhere,  both  authors  and  publishers  have  received  every  aid 
that  could  be  asked  in  this  undertaking ; and  in  announcing  the  issue  of 
the  work  the  publishers  take  this  occasion  to  convey  the  thanks  which 
the  authors  have  had  individual  opportunities  to  express  elsewhere. 


The  volumes  are  duodecimos  of  about  250  pages  each, 
illustrated  by  maps  and  plans  prepared  under  the  direction 
of  the  authors. 

The  price  of  each  volume  is  $1.00. 


The  following  volumes  are  now  ready : 

I. — The  Outbreak  of  Rebellion.  By  John  G.  Nicolay, 
Esq.,  Private  Secretary  to  President  Lincoln ; late  Consul- 
General  to  France,  etc. 

A preliminary  volume,  describing  the  opening  of  the  war,  and  covering  the 
period  from  the  election  of  Lincoln  to  the  end  of  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run. 


II. — From  Fort  Henry  to  Corinth.  By  the  Hon.  M. 
F.  Force,  Justice  of  the  Superior  Court,  Cincinnatti;  late 
Brigadier-General  and  Bvt.  Maj.  Gen’l,  U.S.V.,  commanding 
First  Division,  17th  Corps:  in  1862,  Lieut.  Colonel  of  the 

20th  Ohio,  commanding  the  regiment  at  Shiloh ; Treasurer  of 
the  Society  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee. 

The  narrative  of  events  in  the  West  from  the  Summer  of  1861  to  May,  1862 ; 
covering  the  capture  of  Fts.  Henry  and  Donelson,  the  Battle  of  Shiloh,  etc.,  etc. 


III. — The  Peninsula.  By  Alexander  S.  Webb,  LL.D., 
President  of  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York:  Assistant 
Chief  of  Artillery,  Army  of  the  Potomac,  1861-62  ; Inspector 
General  Fifth  Army  Corps;  General  commanding  2d  Div., 
2d  Corps;  Major  General  Assigned,  and  Chief  of  Staff,  Army 
of  the  Potomac. 

The  history  of  McClellan’s  Peninsula  Campaign,  from  his  appointment  to  the 
end  of  the  Seven  Days’  Fight. 


IV. — The  Army  under  Pope.  By  John  C.  Ropes,  Esq., 
of  the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  etc. 

From  the  appointment  of  Pope  to  command  the  Army  of  Virginia,  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  McClellan  to  the  general  command  in  September,  1862 


V. — The  Antiefam  and  Fredericksburg.  By  Francis 

Winthrop  Palfrey,  Bvt.  Brigadier  Gen’l,  U.  S.V.,  and  form- 
erly Colonel  20th  Mass.  Infantry ; Lieut.  Col.  of  the  20th 
Massachusetts  at  the  Battle  of  the  Antietam ; Member  of 
the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  etc. 

From  the  appointment  of  McClellan  to  the  general  command,  September,  2862,  to 
the  end  of  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg.  - 


VI. — Chancellorsville  and  Gettysburg.  By  Abner 

' Doubleday,  Bvt.  Maj.  Gen’l,  U.  S.  A.,  and  Maj.  Gen’l, 
U.S.V.  ; commanding  the  First  Corps  at  Gettysburg,  etc. 

From  the  appointment  of  Hooker,  through  the  campaigns  of  Chancellorsville  and 
Gettysburg,  to  the  retreat  of  Lee  after  the  latter  battle. 


VII. — The  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  By  Henry  M. 
Cist,  Brevet  Brig.  Gen’l  U.S.V.  ; A.A.G.  on  the  staff  of 
Major  Gen’l  Rosecrans,  and  afterwards  on  that  of  Major  Gen’l 
Thomas  ; Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Society  of  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland. 

From  the  formation  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  to  the  end  of  the  battles  at 
Chattanooga,  November,  1863. 


/ 


VIII. — The  Mississippi.  By  Francis  Vinton  Greene, 
Lieut,  of  Engineers,  U.  S.  Army  ; late  Military  Attache  to  the 
U.  S.  Legation  in  St.  l’etersburg ; Author  of  “ The  Russian 
Army  and  its  Campaigns  in  Turkey  in  1877-78,”  and  of 
“Army  Life  in  Russia.” 

An  account  of  the  operations— especially  at  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson — by 
which  the  Mississippi  River  and  its  shores  were  restored  to  the  control  of  the  Union. 


IX. — Atlanta.  By  the  Hon.  Jacob  D.  Cox,  Ex-Governor  of 

Ohio;  late  Secretary  of  the  Interior  of  the  United  States; 
Major  General  U.  S.  V.,  commanding  Twenty-third  Corps 
during  the  campaigns  of  Atlanta  and  the  Carolinas,  etc.,  etc. 

From  Sherman’s  first  advance  into  Georgia  in  May,  1864,  to  the  beginning  of 
the  March  to  the  Sea. 


X. — The  March  to  the  Sea — Franklin  and  Nashville. 

By  the  Hon.  Jacob  D.  Cox. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  March  to  the  Sea  to  the  surrender  of  Johnston — 
including  also  the  operations  of  Thomas  in  Tennessee. 


XI.  — The  Shenandoah  Valley  in  1S64.  The  Cam- 

paign of  Sheri  flan.  By  George  E.  Pond,  Esq.,  Asso- 
ciate Editor  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Journal. 

XII.  — The  Virginia  Campaign  of  ’04  and  ’G5.  The 
Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  the 
Janies.  By  Andrew  A.  Humphreys,  Brigadier  General 
and  Bvt.  Major  General,  U.  S.  A.  ; late  Chief  of  Engineers ; 
Chief  of  Staff',  Army  of  the  Potomac,  1863-64 ; commanding 
Second  Corps,  1864-’ 65,  etc.,  etc. 

Statistical  Record  of  the  Armies  of  the  United 
States.  By  Frederick  Phisterer,  late  Captain  U.  S.  A. 

This  Record  includes  the  figures  of  the  quotas  and  men  actually  furnished  by 
all  States  ; a list  of  all  organizations  mustered  into  the  U.  S.  service;  the  strength 
of  the  army  at  various  periods  ; its  organization  in  armies,  corps,  etc.;  the  divisions 
of  the  country  into  departments,  etc.;  chronological  list  of  all  engagements,  with  the 
losses  in  each  ; tabulated  statements  of  all  losses  in  the  war,  with  the  causes  of 
death,  etc. ; full  lists  of  all  general  officers,  and  an  immense  amount  of  other  valuable 
statistical  matter  relating  to  the  War. 


The  complete  Set,  thirteen  volumes,  in  a box.  Price,  $12.50 
Single  volumes,  ......  1.00 

***  The  above  books  for  sale  by  all  booksellers , or  will  be  sent , postpaid , 
upon  receipt  0/  price , by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  and  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


ANNOUNCEMENT. 


From  the  beginning  of  their  Series,  “ The  Campaigns  of  the 
Civil  War,”  the  Publishers  have  recognized  the  fact  that  to  carry 
out  their  design  completely,  these  accounts  of  the  land  operations 
should  in  time  be  followed  by  the  narrative  of  the  hardly  less  im- 
portant action  on  the  sea  and  the  great  rivers.  The  reception  of 
the  successive  volumes  of  the  Campaigns  and  the  constant  in- 
quiries whether  the  naval  battles  would  not  ultimately  be 
included,  were  additional  evidence  of  such  a need ; and  early  in 
the  undertaking  its  completion  in  this  way  was  resolved  upon. 

Messrs.  Charles  Scribner’s  Sons  now  announce  that  the 
Series  of  Campaigns  will  be  followed  by  three  volumes  under  the 
general  title  of 

THE  NAVY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


I.  — The  Bloclcade  and  the  Cruisers. 

By  Professor  J.  Russell  Soley,  U.  S.  Navy. 

II. — The  Atlantic  Coast. 

By  Rear-Admiral  Daniel  Ammen,  U.  S.  Navy. 

III. — The  Gulf  and  Inland  Waters. 

By  Commander  A.  T.  Mahan,  U.  S.  Navy. 


They  will  be  uniform  in  size  and  price  with  the  volumes 
of  the  Campaigns,  and  will  be  published  in  quick  succession — 
the  series  being  completed  during  the  spring. 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS,  Publishers, 
743  and  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


